Currently the dependence between compilation and animal-sniffer tasks is that animal-sniffer is set to depend on compile, so compile is run first if animal-sniffer is in the task execution graph. The problem is that, generally speaking, animal-sniffer is not in the task execution graph unless it is explicitly requested (or unless check is requested).

The relationship here really needs to be that compilation always triggers animal-sniffer execution, probably by means of a doLast block. Also, this is just for compile of the main source set.