When in RAD mode, jar files should *not* be copied into src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/lib folder

[codeconsole]

If we are just using
gradle gaeRun

Why are all the jar files placed in the src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/lib folder?
Why do they even need to be there?

the
mvn gae:run
plugin does not do this?

gradle compile does not do this?
Is it not possible to use the gradle classpath when running gaeRun while not having to resolve all the jar files into the source tree?

[erdi]

I had a look and it seems like one can only add classes to classpath via lib and classes directories of WEB-INF inside of root application directory.

You could in theory modify 'java.class.path' property when starting dev server as it gets passed down the chain, but then DevAppServer class is loaded using DevAppServerClassLoader which is described with the following javadoc:

This ClassLoader refuses to load anything off of the JVM's System ClassLoader except for JRE classes (i.e. it ignores classpath and JAR manifest entries).

I also couldn't find any parameter/option of KickStart or DevAppServer that could be used to modify the classpath directly.

[bmuschko]

@erdi is correct. KickStart and DevAppServer do not support setting a classpath directly. We discussed this before in this issue. Not sure how the Maven plugin does this. I'd need to have a look at their source code.