Improve error message for transitive types

Say you have 3 modules, :app, :libraryA and :libraryB.

:app depends on :libraryA which in turn depends :libraryB using the implementation configuration. If :libraryB has some dagger modules or components you can get this cryptic error message:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':app:kaptReleaseKotlin'.
> A failure occurred while executing org.jetbrains.kotlin.gradle.internal.KaptExecution
   > java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException (no error message)

Running with --stacktrace gives slightly more information:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: com.example.libraryb.SomeType does not represent a declared type
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.MoreTypes$CastingTypeVisitor.defaultAction(MoreTypes.java:948)
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.MoreTypes$CastingTypeVisitor.defaultAction(MoreTypes.java:939)
	at jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code.Type$ErrorType.accept(Type.java:2386)
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.MoreTypes.asDeclared(MoreTypes.java:579)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.base.Keys$1.visitDeclared(Keys.java:85)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.base.Keys$1.visitDeclared(Keys.java:62)
	at jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code.Type$ClassType.accept(Type.java:1151)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.base.Keys.isValidImplicitProvisionKey(Keys.java:61)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.base.Keys.isValidImplicitProvisionKey(Keys.java:46)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.validation.InjectBindingRegistryImpl.getOrFindProvisionBinding(InjectBindingRegistryImpl.java:300)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory$Resolver.lookUpBindings(BindingGraphFactory.java:410)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory$Resolver.resolve(BindingGraphFactory.java:919)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory$Resolver.resolveDependencies(BindingGraphFactory.java:934)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory$Resolver.resolveMembersInjection(BindingGraphFactory.java:877)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory$Resolver.access$1300(BindingGraphFactory.java:310)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory.lambda$createLegacyBindingGraph$4(BindingGraphFactory.java:214)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory.createLegacyBindingGraph(BindingGraphFactory.java:211)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory.createLegacyBindingGraph(BindingGraphFactory.java:240)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.binding.BindingGraphFactory.create(BindingGraphFactory.java:118)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.ComponentProcessingStep.processRootComponent(ComponentProcessingStep.java:115)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.ComponentProcessingStep.process(ComponentProcessingStep.java:93)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.ComponentProcessingStep.process(ComponentProcessingStep.java:53)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.validation.TypeCheckingProcessingStep.lambda$process$0(TypeCheckingProcessingStep.java:51)
	at com.google.common.collect.RegularImmutableMap.forEach(RegularImmutableMap.java:185)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.validation.TypeCheckingProcessingStep.process(TypeCheckingProcessingStep.java:48)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.validation.TypeCheckingProcessingStep.process(TypeCheckingProcessingStep.java:34)
	at dagger.internal.codegen.statistics.DaggerStatisticsCollectingProcessingStep.process(DaggerStatisticsCollectingProcessingStep.java:52)
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.BasicAnnotationProcessor$ProcessingStepAsStep.process(BasicAnnotationProcessor.java:495)
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.BasicAnnotationProcessor.process(BasicAnnotationProcessor.java:228)
	at dagger.shaded.auto.common.BasicAnnotationProcessor.process(BasicAnnotationProcessor.java:208)
	at org.jetbrains.kotlin.kapt3.base.incremental.IncrementalProcessor.process(incrementalProcessors.kt)
	at org.jetbrains.kotlin.kapt3.base.ProcessorWrapper.process(annotationProcessing.kt:161)
	at jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.processing.JavacProcessingEnvironment.callProcessor(JavacProcessingEnvironment.java:980)
	... 37 more

This is of course an error in the setup and :app should either depend on :libraryB directly or you should use api but it’s very difficult to determine what module is causing issue. You see which type it related too but not really which file is being processed.

In any case I think there is room improvement here.

[bcorso]

If you’re using Hilt (with Gradle) the solution is to use the Hilt Gradle plugin and then enable the aggregating task in your build.gradle modules:

hilt {
    enableAggregatingTask = true
}

[harshfast]

then ena

@bcorso Thanks for the quick resolution. It worked!! now I removed all other dependencies for ;app module. I feel Hilt documentation is misleading as first line itself says “The Gradle module that compiles your Application class needs to have all Hilt modules and constructor-injected classes in its transitive dependencies.”