Command Line Options

All options for gradle-check-updates (gcu).

Core Actions

Option	Default	Description
[directory]	.	Root directory to scan.
-u, --upgrade	false	Write changes to disk. Without this, gcu runs a dry-run.
-i, --interactive	false	Launch a TUI picker to selectively choose which deps to upgrade.

Upgrade Policy

Option	Default	Description
-t, --target <target>	major	Version ceiling for upgrades: major, minor, or patch.
-c, --cooldown <days>	0	Security feature: skip versions published newer than N days.
--allow-downgrade	false	Enforce cooldowns by allowing rollbacks (requires --cooldown).
--pre	false	Allow prereleases (e.g. betas, RCs) as upgrade candidates.

Filtering

Option	Default	Description
--include <pattern>		Include filter, repeatable. Accepts comma-separated patterns (e.g. --include "com.google.*,org.jetbrains:*") or multiple flags.
--exclude <pattern>		Exclude filter, repeatable. Accepts comma-separated patterns (e.g. --exclude "junit:*,org.legacy:*") or multiple flags.

Output & CI

Option	Default	Description
--json	false	JSON output mode (human output goes to stderr, JSON to stdout).
--error-on-outdated	false	Exit code 1 when upgrades are available but -u was not passed. Excellent for CI gates.
--verbose [level]	0	Verbosity. --verbose 1 shows held/skipped entries. --verbose 2 lists every detected dependency, including those already at the latest version.

Network & Cache

Option	Default	Description
--concurrency <n>	5	Max number of concurrent HTTP requests to the registry.
--no-cache	false	Bypass the local metadata cache for this run.
--clear-cache	false	Delete the local cache before running, then fetch fresh data.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success - no upgrades available, or -u applied all upgrades
1	Upgrades available but -u was not passed (only when --error-on-outdated is set)
2	Usage or config validation error
3	Project file parse error
4	Network / repository error
5	Rich-block coherence conflict prevented a rewrite