Configuring Multiple Environments in Spring Boot and Maven

In daily development there are usually three environments: development (dev), testing (test), and production (prod), each with different configurations such as database, port, and IP address.

This article explains how to configure multiple environments in Spring Boot and how to package the application accordingly.

Spring Boot built‑in multi‑environment configuration

Spring Boot supports profile‑based configuration out of the box, allowing you to switch environments at build or run time.

Creating separate configuration files

Create three property files named application-dev.properties, application-test.properties and application-prod.properties. The base file application.properties also remains in the project.

All four files coexist in the project.

Specifying the active profile

You can set the active profile either in application.properties / application.yml:

# Set active profile to test
spring.profiles.active=test

Or pass it as a command‑line argument when running the jar:

java -jar xxx.jar --spring.profiles.active=test

Maven multi‑environment configuration

Maven can also activate profiles that affect Spring Boot’s spring.profiles.active property.

Defining profiles in pom.xml

Example snippet:

<!-- Define three development profiles -->
<profiles>
    <profile>
        <id>dev</id>
        <activation>
            <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
        </activation>
        <properties>
            <profile.active>dev</profile.active>
        </properties>
    </profile>

    <profile>
        <id>test</id>
        <properties>
            <profile.active>test</profile.active>
        </properties>
    </profile>

    <profile>
        <id>prod</id>
        <properties>
            <profile.active>prod</profile.active>
        </properties>
    </profile>
</profiles>

The variable profile.active is supplied with -P test (or dev/prod) during the Maven build.

Resource filtering

To include only the configuration file for the selected profile, configure resource filtering in pom.xml:

<build>
  <resources>
    <!-- Exclude all configuration files first -->
    <resource>
      <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
      <excludes>
        <exclude>application*.properties</exclude>
      </excludes>
    </resource>

    <!-- Include the required configuration file -->
    <resource>
      <directory>src/main/resources</directory>
      <filtering>true</filtering>
      <includes>
        <include>application.yml</include>
        <include>application-${profile.active}.yml</include>
      </includes>
    </resource>
  </resources>
</build>

After these settings you can select the profile in IDEA or run mvn clean package -P test to build the jar for the test environment.

Conclusion

The article demonstrates two ways to package a Spring Boot application with environment‑specific configurations, using either Spring Boot’s built‑in profile mechanism or Maven profiles, each with its own advantages.