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DevOps / Gradle8 Interview Questions

What happens when two dependencies resolve to conflicting versions?

When two dependencies (directly or transitively) require different versions of the same library, Gradle doesn't fail by default — it applies conflict resolution, and by default picks the highest requested version among the candidates, a strategy generally called "latest wins."

configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy {
        failOnVersionConflict()          // fail instead of silently picking the highest
        force 'com.google.guava:guava:33.0.0-jre'   // pin a specific version
    }
}

This default keeps most builds working without manual intervention, but it can mask a real incompatibility — if a library genuinely doesn't work with the version Gradle silently selected, the failure shows up later as a runtime NoSuchMethodError or similar, not as a build-time error. resolutionStrategy.failOnVersionConflict() makes Gradle fail loudly at build time instead, forcing an explicit resolution (via force, an exclude, or a version catalog's alignment features) rather than relying on the silent default.

What does Gradle do by default when two dependencies require different versions of the same library?
What can happen if the silently selected 'winning' version is actually incompatible with a dependent library?

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