Gradle FatJar Plugin allows you to create JAR file with all dependecies bundled inside. It handles files in META-INF/services directory gracefully by merging them. It also allows you to create slim WAR file which contains only JAR with dependencies. Classes are also bundled into the JAR instead of putting them into WEB-INF/classes.

Plugin is hosted in Maven Central Repository. You can easily add plugin to your build script using following configuration

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath 'eu.appsatori:gradle-fatjar-plugin:0.1.2'
    }
    
    apply plugin: 'fatjar'
}

Explodes all JARs into the stage directory and merges all files needed such as those in META-INF/services.

Creates the JAR with all dependencies bundled.

This is regullar Jar task so you can e.g. customize the manifest as described in Jar Task DSL.

Bundles all output classes into JAR with dependencies and place it into WEB-INF/lib directory of the newly created WAR file.

This is regullar War task so you can e.g. customize the web.xml file as described in War Task DSL.

You can specify additional files to be merged using Ant-style pattern and include method on fatJarPrepareFiles task.

fatJarPrepareFiles {
  include 'META-INF/spring.handlers'
  include 'META-INF/spring.schemas'
}

If you need to keep some JARs out of the JAR with dependencies you can specify extendended property fatJarExclude on particular dependency. All excluded JARs will be placed in WEB-INF\lib directory if slimWar task is called.

dependencies {
  compile 'eu.appsatori:pipes:0.6.1', {
    ext {
      fatJarExclude = true
    }
  }
}