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ktlint broken in 8.4.0 — FeatureClassLoader missing Kotlin stdlib

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
55/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
java, kotlin
Domain
build-system

Research direction

Reproduce the failure with Spotless 8.4.0, Kotlin 2.3.20, and Gradle 9.4.1 using both ktlint configurations. Start at FeatureClassLoader.java:79 and KtLintCompat1Dot0Dot0Adapter.java:68, then inspect how the predeclared-dependencies change assembles the ktlint classpath. Done means spotlessKotlinCheck succeeds for Kotlin files without reverting to 8.3.0.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Bug

After upgrading from 8.3.0 to 8.4.0, spotlessKotlinCheck fails for all Kotlin files. ktlint cannot initialize because Spotless' FeatureClassLoader fails to load a core Kotlin stdlib class.

Root cause from the lint output:

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: kotlin.collections.ArraysKt___ArraysJvmKt
    at com.diffplug.spotless.FeatureClassLoader.findClass(FeatureClassLoader.java:79)
    ...
    at com.diffplug.spotless.glue.ktlint.compat.KtLintCompat1Dot0Dot0Adapter.<clinit>(KtLintCompat1Dot0Dot0Adapter.java:68)

This happens both with ktlint("1.8.0") and ktlint() (default). Reverting to 8.3.0 fixes it.

Environment

  • Spotless: 8.4.0 (8.3.0 works)
  • Kotlin: 2.3.20
  • Gradle: 9.4.1
  • JDK: 21

Notes

The 8.4.0 changelog shows no ktlint changes. The predeclared dependencies fix might have affected how ktlint's classpath is assembled in FeatureClassLoader.

Dominant language
Java
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