D8 fails while dexing gradle-api-8.11.1.jar during Android instrumented tests

I’m hitting a build failure only when running Android instrumented tests (connectedDebugAndroidTest) on a multi-module Android project.

Environment

Android Gradle Plugin: 8.9.0

Gradle: 8.11.1

JDK: 17

Kotlin: 2.2.21

KSP: (tested multiple versions, including matching line 2.2.21-2.0.x)

Module where it fails: :core:database (Android library)

What I’m doing
Running instrumented tests:

./gradlew :core:database:connectedDebugAndroidTest

Failure
The build fails at:

> Task :core:database:desugarDebugAndroidTestFileDependencies FAILED Execution failed for task ':core:database:desugarDebugAndroidTestFileDependencies'. > ... DexFileDependenciesWorkerAction > Error while dexing.

And D8 reports a duplicate class inside gradle-api-8.11.1.jar:

Type org.gradle.internal.impldep.com.fasterxml.jackson.core.io.doubleparser.BigSignificand is defined multiple times: .../gradle-api-8.11.1.jar:org/gradle/internal/impldep/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/io/doubleparser/BigSignificand.class, .../gradle-api-8.11.1.jar:org/gradle/internal/impldep/META-INF/versions/11/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/io/doubleparser/BigSignificand.class

The jar path is:
~/.gradle/caches/8.11.1/generated-gradle-jars/gradle-api-8.11.1.jar

This looks like D8 treating the Multi-Release JAR entries (META-INF/versions/11/...) as duplicates.

Question

Why is gradle-api-8.11.1.jar ending up on the androidTest classpath / file dependencies for dexing?

What is the correct way to prevent Gradle internal jars (gradle-api) from being included in Android instrumented test dexing?

Is this a known issue/compatibility problem with D8/Desugar and Multi-Release JARs, or likely a misconfiguration in my build?

Notes / What I tried

dependencyInsight --dependency gradle-api on debugAndroidTestRuntimeClasspath did not show a Maven dependency, which makes me suspect a file-based inclusion / plugin/build-logic misconfiguration.

I previously had a build-logic convention module accidentally created as an Android library, but I’ve migrated it back to a JVM Gradle plugin. Still, the error persists only on androidTest dexing.

If anyone has seen this before or knows where to look for the source of gradle-api being pulled into D8, I’d appreciate guidance.