Fail the Gradle build when dependencies are not available - gradle

Question

build.gradle (unnecessary parts were ommited):
apply plugin: 'java'
repositories {
mavenCentral()
maven {
credentials {
username "$mavenUser"
password "$mavenPassword"
}
url "http://localhost:8081/nexus/content/groups/public"
}
}
dependencies {
compile("com.example:some-lib:1.0.0-RELEASE")
}
Assume that the defined dependency is missing in configured Maven repository. When ./gradlew clean build tasks are executed the application is built successfully, although the required dependencies are missing.
Is there a way to configure Gradle to fail if there are unresolved dependencies?
Relates to:
How to make Gradle fail the build if a file dependency is not found? - Solution provided there is not applicable.

Answer 1

Consider this build.gradle (note: intentionally bogus jar specified in dependencies):
apply plugin: 'java'
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
dependencies {
compile("junit:junit:4.12")
compile("junit:junitxyz:51.50")
}
task checkDependencies() {
doLast {
configurations.compile.each { file ->
println "TRACER checking: " + file.name
assert file.exists()
}
}
}
compileJava.dependsOn checkDependencies
example output:
$ gradle -q clean compileJava
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
[snip]
* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':checkDependencies'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':compile'.
> Could not find junit:junitxyz:51.50.
Searched in the following locations:
- https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/junit/junitxyz/51.50/junitxyz-51.50.pom
- https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/junit/junitxyz/51.50/junitxyz-51.50.jar