What does Gradle ‘build’ task include exactly

You can use the Gradle Task Tree Plugin to see the task dependencies

eg:

plugins {
    id "com.dorongold.task-tree" version "1.3.1"
}

Then run

gradle build taskTree

Output

:build
+--- :assemble
|    \--- :jar
|         \--- :classes
|              +--- :compileJava
|              \--- :processResources
\--- :check
     \--- :test
          +--- :classes
          |    +--- :compileJava
          |    \--- :processResources
          \--- :testClasses
               +--- :compileTestJava
               |    \--- :classes
               |         +--- :compileJava
               |         \--- :processResources
               \--- :processTestResources