I tracked this variation down to our most common library (literally

common/src/main/java:lib

) If I compile the library by itself, I get one ordering. If I compile some projects that depend on it, the ordering changes. It turns out that

org.eclipse.jetty.toolchain/jetty-schemas/jars/jetty-schemas-3.1.M0.jar

is a transitive dependency. No targets explicitly define it. So, I've been thinking about my problem and trying to decide if it is something to do with the way we are defining our projects or if there is a bug in pants. I'd like to think that if a target defines a list of dependencies in a particular order that they would remain in that order. I'll dig further to figure out where that dep is coming from in both builds.