A simple gradle task to upload a file via SCP to a remote host and to execute a command via SSH on a remote host.

scp-ssh.gradle

repositories { mavenCentral() }

configurations { sshAntTask }

dependencies { sshAntTask 'org.apache.ant:ant-jsch:1.9.2' }

ant.taskdef(
        name: 'scp',
        classname: 'org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.ssh.Scp',
        classpath: configurations.sshAntTask.asPath)

ant.taskdef(
        name: 'ssh',
        classname: 'org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.ssh.SSHExec',
        classpath: configurations.sshAntTask.asPath)

task scpAndScpTest() << {
    // Create a new file for each execution to make 
    // sure that execution doesn't fails in case 
    // idententy of host has been changed.
    def knownHosts = File.createTempFile("knownhosts", "txt")
    def user = 'root'
    def host = '10.129.184.44'
    def privateKey = file('keys/myKey')

    try {
        
        // Example to copy files to a remote host.
        ant.scp(
                file: file("build.gradle"),
                todir: "${user}@${host}:~",
                keyfile: privateKey,
                trust: true,
                knownhosts: knownHosts
        )

        // Example to execute a command on the remote host.
        ant.ssh(
                host: host,
                username: user,
                keyfile: privateKey,
                trust: true,
                knownhosts: knownHosts,
                command: "ls /"

        )

    } finally {
        knownHosts.delete()
    }
}

An interesting alternative on using the ant task might be the gradle SSH plugin: https://gradle-ssh-plugin.github.io/