getApplicationDistribution

The specification of the contents of the distribution.

Use this org.gradle.api.file.CopySpec to include extra files/resource in the application distribution.

 apply plugin: 'application' applicationDistribution.from("some/dir") { include "*.txt" } 

Note that the application plugin pre configures this spec to; include the contents of "src/dist", copy the application start scripts into the "bin" directory, and copy the built jar and its dependencies into the "lib" directory.