Build file has the following at top level: <property name="foo" value="bar.xml"/> <import file="${foo}"/> Quit Idea and restart. Targets in the top-level build file which depend on targets in bar.xml are red – incorrectly so, as bar.xml does contain the depended-on targets and the build runs fine. Change top-level build file to <import file="bar.xml"/> Quit Idea and restart. Targets which depend on targets in bar.xml are now green. I said "quit Idea and restart" because editing the import statement in any way (delete and retype the f in foo, for example) seems to cause Idea to reevaluate things and the same reds also go away. They reappear after quitting and restarting.