just move that one out of the ext block as well?

I don't understand the question.

In groovy file you're assigning values, but in kotlin you're trying to retrieve them

from where? settings.gradle.kts?

ext {
    kotlinVersion = '1.2.60'
}

would be the same as:

extra["kotlinVersion"] = "1.2.60"

aaaaaaaah

ext is a map

just starting out with gradle so I have very little knowledge yet. Still simpler than maven

There are examples in the blog at the link I posted above

hm, kinda looks like a hack

If you're just starting out I'd suggest to work through gradle docs: https://gradle.org/guides/#getting-started Actually using ext is a hack 🙂 buildSrc is way to go with gradle 😄

I see 😞