Gradle executes a series of commands called task declared inside the build.gradle file. The syntax to declare tasks is Groovy-based, as described before. A simple example of how to declare a task is:

task goGradle {
    doLast {
        println 'Gradle Task'
    }
}

The command to execute this simple task is:

$ gradle goGradle

The output for this command is:

Gradle Task

Another syntax to define the same task is:

task goGradle << {
    println ''Gradle Task'
}

In the first task definition, we use the doLast block to wrap actions to perform; we can use other instructions such as doFirst to decide task ordering. Thanks to doFirst and doLast, Gradle accomplishes its main characteristic to use a DAG for a task's order.

More Gradle functionalities are tasks, and they are executed with the command-line syntax explained.