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Correct, those are deprecated (but still available). Replacement is to use convention plugins.

Ah, I am trying to understand convention plugins... But, IntelliJ did not seem to complain when I used

subprojects { . . . }

It’s still available but strongly discouraged to use.

NP... want to learn the new way...

I discuss it at a high level in this post https://developer.squareup.com/blog/herding-elephants