How SBT does dependency resolution

04/13/2016

SBT uses its own fork of Ivy to do dependency resolution. The code to do this resolution is split between a few classes such as ConvertResolver.

I’ve posted below an excerpt of what SBT does. It uses a chained resolver, which I’ve simplified here to use a single resolver for demonstration purposes.

IvySettings settings = new IvySettings();
ResolveEngine engine = new ResolveEngine(settings, new EventManager(), new SortEngine(settings));
ResolveData data = new ResolveData(engine, new ResolveOptions());
IBiblioResolver resolver = new IBiblioResolver();
resolver.setRoot("https://repo1.maven.org/maven2");
resolver.setName("central");
resolver.setM2compatible(true);
resolver.setSettings(settings);

settings.addResolver(resolver);
settings.setDefaultResolver("central");

ModuleRevisionId mrid = ModuleRevisionId.newInstance("commons-cli", "commons-cli", "1.3.1");
ResolvedModuleRevision resolved = resolver.getDependency(new DefaultDependencyDescriptor(mrid, true), data);

System.out.println("Resolved: " + resolved);