Hey Nic! This is a known issue when using newer versions of Android Studio. They used to add the $kotlin_version variable for you when creating a new project, but no longer.
If you open the project’s build.gradle file (not the app’s file of the same name), you can add an ext block to the buildscript block to include that variable:
buildscript {
ext {
kotlin_version = '1.4.10'
gradle_version = '4.1.0'
}
// The rest of the buildscript lives down here.
}
Let me know if this helps!