Legacy 'apply' plugin notation

Detects usage of legacy apply plugin methods in Gradle build scripts.

If the plugin is a core plugin, or it comes from the gradlePluginPortal, offers a quick-fix to convert the legacy syntax to the preferred plugins block syntax. The buildscript block will be automatically modified to remove redundant dependencies, and in the case it becomes empty, it will be removed as well.

Core Plugin example:

apply(plugin = "java") // highlights this line

plugins {
    id("java")
}

External Plugin example:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        gradlePluginPortal()
    }

    dependencies {
        classpath("com.google.protobuf:com.google.protobuf.gradle.plugin:0.9.4")
    }
}

apply(plugin = "com.google.protobuf") // reports this line

plugins {
    id("com.google.protobuf").version("0.9.4")
}

Best practice described here.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

AvoidApplyPluginMethod

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Gradle | Best practices

Inspection ID: AvoidApplyPluginMethod

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection AvoidApplyPluginMethod

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1, Qodana for JVM 2026.1,

Last modified: 31 March 2026