Profile-based configuration in Spring Boot

Introduction

Profile-based configuration helps you run your app with different settings for different situations, like development or production. It keeps your app flexible and easy to manage.

When you want different database settings for testing and live use.

When you need to enable debug logging only during development.

When deploying the same app to multiple environments with different URLs or keys.

When you want to turn features on or off depending on the environment.

Syntax

Spring Boot

spring.profiles.active=profileName

# Example: application-dev.properties
server.port=8081

# Example: application-prod.properties
server.port=80

Use spring.profiles.active in application.properties or as a command line argument to select the active profile.

Create separate application-{profile}.properties files for each profile's settings.

Examples

This sets the active profile to dev. Spring Boot will load application-dev.properties settings.

Spring Boot

# application.properties
spring.profiles.active=dev

Settings used only when the dev profile is active.

Spring Boot

# application-dev.properties
server.port=8081
logging.level.root=DEBUG

Settings used only when the prod profile is active.

Spring Boot

# application-prod.properties
server.port=80
logging.level.root=ERROR

Run the app with the prod profile from the command line.

Spring Boot

# Command line
java -jar app.jar --spring.profiles.active=prod

Sample Program

This Spring Boot app reads a message from configuration based on the active profile and shows it at the home URL.

Create two files:

• application-dev.properties with app.message=Hello from Development!
• application-prod.properties with app.message=Welcome to Production!

Set the active profile to dev or prod to see different messages.

Spring Boot

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@SpringBootApplication
public class DemoApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
    }
}

@RestController
class HelloController {

    @Value("${app.message}")
    private String message;

    @GetMapping("/")
    public String home() {
        return message;
    }
}

Important Notes

You can activate multiple profiles by separating them with commas, like spring.profiles.active=dev,debug.

Profiles help keep sensitive info like passwords out of your main config.

Use @Profile annotation on beans to load them only for certain profiles.

Summary

Profiles let you switch app settings easily for different environments.

Create separate config files named application-{profile}.properties.

Activate profiles via properties file, command line, or environment variables.