SAP Commerce Cloud Framework Update JDK 21 - issue with ANT gradle target

Recently I have been involved in Framework Update engagement to bump Commerce Cloud solution from JDK 17 to JDK 21. Upgrade to Java 21 It has been announced some time ago by SAP as a Framework Update which bumps Java, Spring and long list of dependencies to latest Java LTS. More information about service you can find on: SAP Learning Medium blog post LinkedIn blog post One of nice things which has been added by SAP is upgrade automation based on OpenRewrite. More information about whole activity you can find as SAP KBA 3618495 - Using OpenRewrite recipes to support SAP Commerce Cloud JDK21 Framework Update adoption Issue At the beginning when you run ant command ant gradle you may get similar error like: /opt/hybris/hybris/bin/platform/build.xml:204: Cannot invoke "String.startsWith(String)" because the return value of "org.apache.maven.model.Dependency.getVersion()" is null That error is related to scanning process for Maven dependencies in external-dependencies.xml . Root cause In my