diff --git a/GUIDELINES.md b/GUIDELINES.md
index a5c968ae4..2aa70b3c4 100644
--- a/GUIDELINES.md
+++ b/GUIDELINES.md
@@ -2,6 +2,18 @@
 
 This document captures development standards and architecture decisions of this project as a point of reference.
 
+## Gradle
+
+We build everything with gradle, nesting projects if needed.
+Currently we have some pending updates, due to the following incompatibilities:
+
+- The new johnrengelman.shadow plugin version needs Gradle 7
+- The current Dokka version can neither handle Gradle 7 nor Kotlin 1.5.30+ nor Java beyond version 8
+
+The bottleneck is updating dokka,
+which is a longer process tracked in 
+https://github.com/software-challenge/backend/pull/404
+
 ## Testing
 
 Unsere Unittests nutzen das [Kotest-Framework](https://kotest.io) 
@@ -41,7 +53,7 @@ annotate the serialized fields with a concrete type instead.
 Ideally these fields should then be private with generically typed getters 
 as to not expose the implementation details internally.
 
-## Cloning
+## Object Cloning
 
 Relevant discussion: https://github.com/software-challenge/backend/pull/148
 
diff --git a/gradle/build.gradle.kts b/gradle/build.gradle.kts
index e749767de..623f2d72a 100644
--- a/gradle/build.gradle.kts
+++ b/gradle/build.gradle.kts
@@ -7,11 +7,11 @@ import java.util.concurrent.TimeoutException
 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean
 
 plugins {
-    maven
     kotlin("jvm") version "1.6.21"
     id("org.jetbrains.dokka") version "0.10.1"
     id("scripts-task")
     id("idea")
+    `maven-publish`
     
     id("com.github.ben-manes.versions") version "0.42.0" // only upgrade with Gradle 7: https://github.com/ben-manes/gradle-versions-plugin/issues/778
     id("se.patrikerdes.use-latest-versions") version "0.2.18"
@@ -285,14 +285,32 @@ allprojects {
     }
     
     if (this.name in documentedProjects) {
-        apply(plugin = "maven")
+        apply(plugin = "maven-publish")
         apply(plugin = "org.jetbrains.dokka")
+        publishing {
+            publications {
+                create<MavenPublication>(name) {
+                    println(components.joinToString())
+                    from(components["java"])
+                    version = rootProject.version.toString()
+                }
+            }
+        }
+        java {
+            withSourcesJar()
+            withJavadocJar()
+        }
         tasks {
             val doc by creating(DokkaTask::class) {
                 group = "documentation"
                 dependsOn(classes)
                 outputDirectory = buildDir.resolve("doc").toString()
                 outputFormat = "javadoc"
+                configuration {
+                    reportUndocumented = false
+                    moduleName = "Software-Challenge ${project.name} $version"
+                    jdkVersion = 8
+                }
             }
             val docJar by creating(Jar::class) {
                 group = "build"
@@ -300,17 +318,14 @@ allprojects {
                 archiveBaseName.set(jar.get().archiveBaseName)
                 archiveClassifier.set("javadoc")
             }
-            val sourcesJar by creating(Jar::class) {
-                group = "build"
-                archiveBaseName.set(jar.get().archiveBaseName)
-                archiveClassifier.set("sources")
-                from(sourceSets.main.get().allSource)
-            }
-            install {
-                dependsOn(docJar, sourcesJar)
-            }
+            //val sourcesJar by creating(Jar::class) {
+            //    group = "build"
+            //    archiveBaseName.set(jar.get().archiveBaseName)
+            //    archiveClassifier.set("sources")
+            //    from(sourceSets.main.get().allSource)
+            //}
             artifacts {
-                archives(sourcesJar.archiveFile) { classifier = "sources" }
+                //archives(sourcesJar.archiveFile) { classifier = "sources" }
                 archives(docJar.archiveFile) { classifier = "javadoc" }
             }
         }
diff --git a/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties b/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties
index c51cbf173..03e41b61c 100644
--- a/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties
+++ b/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
 distributionPath=wrapper/dists
-distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-6.9.4-all.zip
+distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-7.0-all.zip
+# 7.6.6
+# 8.14.3
 zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
 zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
diff --git a/plugin2025/src/test/kotlin/sc/plugin2025/MoveTest.kt b/plugin2025/src/test/kotlin/sc/plugin2025/MoveTest.kt
index 7a613e802..7e07c67f0 100644
--- a/plugin2025/src/test/kotlin/sc/plugin2025/MoveTest.kt
+++ b/plugin2025/src/test/kotlin/sc/plugin2025/MoveTest.kt
@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ class MoveTest: WordSpec({
             state.getSensibleMoves() shouldBe listOf(FallBack, ExchangeCarrots(10))
         }
         
-        "produce concicse XML" {
+        "produce concise XML" {
             ExchangeCarrots(-10) shouldSerializeTo "<exchangecarrots amount=\"-10\"/>"
         }
     }
diff --git a/sdk/build.gradle.kts b/sdk/build.gradle.kts
index f43fafdc5..8c388feb4 100644
--- a/sdk/build.gradle.kts
+++ b/sdk/build.gradle.kts
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ configurations {
 }
 
 artifacts {
-    val kt = tasks["compileTestConfigKotlin"]
+    val kt = tasks.getByName("compileTestConfigKotlin", org.jetbrains.kotlin.gradle.tasks.KotlinCompile::class)
     add("testConfig", kt.outputs.files.first()) {
         builtBy(kt)
     }
@@ -26,13 +26,12 @@ configurations.archives.get().artifacts.removeIf { it.name == "testConfig" }
 
 dependencies {
     api(kotlin("stdlib"))
-    api("com.thoughtworks.xstream", "xstream", "1.4.17") // New security config for 1.4.20
+    api("com.thoughtworks.xstream", "xstream", "1.4.17") // New security config, then 1.4.20
     api("jargs", "jargs", "1.0")
     api("org.slf4j", "slf4j-api", "2.0.9")
     
     implementation("org.hamcrest", "hamcrest-core", "2.2")
     implementation("net.sf.kxml", "kxml2", "2.3.0")
-    implementation("xmlpull", "xmlpull", "1.1.3.1")
     
     "testConfigApi"("io.kotest", "kotest-assertions-core")
     "testConfigApi"("io.kotest", "kotest-runner-junit5-jvm", "5.0.3")