I like this idea.

An alternative (additional) option would be to create a build script out of this information (as part of a future archetype functionality).

Our plugin system is very basic right now. One thing we want to offer is to apply plugins to projects even if they don't have declared them. This is what you are also proposing. For 0.2 we want to make the plugin system much richer. I'm not even sure if plugin is a good name for what plugins are doing right now in Gradle. We plan to diversify to different types of plugins and probably are going to use a different terminology.

I have sketched my ideas about a new plugin system in a mail on the dev list. The first milestone of the upcoming 0.2 stream is supposed to have an implementation of this (after my holidays),

See: http://www.nabble.com/The-new-Gradle-plugin-system-to17239360.html

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Thanks again for reporting this issue. We haven't heard back from you after our inquiry from November 15th. We are closing this issue now. Please create an issue on GitHub if you still feel passionate about getting it resolved.