Gradle Profiler缓存策略及全量清洁构建时长测量相关问题

Let's break down your questions clearly—since measuring clean build times accurately depends on getting these cache behaviors right.

1. What's the Difference Between Build Cache and Transform Cache? #

These are two distinct caching systems in the Gradle ecosystem, each serving a unique purpose:

• Build Cache (Gradle Core)
  This is Gradle's native caching layer that stores full task outputs. Think compiled .class files, packaged JAR/AARs, or processed resources that are direct results of Gradle tasks. It’s designed to reuse task results across builds and even projects—if a task’s inputs haven’t changed, Gradle skips executing the task entirely and pulls the cached output. The build cache is managed directly by Gradle’s incremental build logic.

• Transform Cache (AGP-Specific)
  This is an Android-only cache maintained by the Android Gradle Plugin (AGP). It stores results of intermediate transformation steps that aren’t part of standard Gradle task outputs. Examples include resource compression, R8/ProGuard obfuscation, Jetpack Compose bytecode transformations, or dependency resolution tweaks. AGP uses this cache to avoid re-running expensive transformation logic when input files haven’t changed.

2. Do I Need to Manually Disable Remote Cache, or Does Gradle Profiler Do It Automatically? #

Gradle Profiler does NOT automatically disable remote cache—you’ll need to handle this manually to get accurate clean build measurements.

Remote cache is a global Gradle configuration, and Profiler doesn’t modify your build settings by default. If remote cache is enabled, your profiling runs might pull pre-built results from a remote server, which would skew your "clean build" time (since you’re not truly building everything from scratch locally).

To disable remote cache for profiling:

• Add this line to your project’s gradle.properties file:

  org.gradle.caching.remote.enabled=false
  

• Or, to keep your global config intact, specify it directly in your Gradle Profiler scenario file (e.g., profiler-scenarios.profile):

  scenarios:
    - name: clean_full_build
      tasks: ["clean", "assembleDebug"]
      gradle-properties:
        org.gradle.caching.remote.enabled: false
  

This ensures your profiling runs only use local (or no) cache, giving you reliable measurements of a full clean build.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Maksim Turaev