How to Build a Git‑Backed Spring Cloud Config Server and Client

Introduction

Spring Cloud Config provides centralized external configuration for distributed systems, offering a server (the configuration center) and clients that fetch configuration at startup. By default it stores configuration in a Git repository, enabling version control and easy management.

Prepare the Configuration Repository

Create a Git repository (e.g., on Gitee or GitHub). Add a default configuration file config-client.yml:

info:
  profile: default

and a development‑specific file config-client-dev.yml:

info:
  profile: dev

Build the Config Server

Create a Spring Boot project named config-server-git and add the Config Server dependency:

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-cloud-config-server</artifactId>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

Add the @EnableConfigServer annotation to the main application class:

@EnableConfigServer
@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new SpringApplicationBuilder(Application.class).web(true).run(args);
    }
}

Configure application.yml with the Git repository location and server port:

spring:
  application: config-server
cloud:
  config:
    server:
      git:
        uri: http://git.oschina.net/didispace/config-repo-demo/
server:
  port: 1201

Start the server and verify it runs without errors.

Accessing Configuration via URLs

The server exposes several URL patterns, for example:

/{application}/{profile}[/{label}]

/{application}-{profile}.yml

/{label}/{application}-{profile}.yml

/{application}-{profile}.properties

/{label}/{application}-{profile}.properties

Requesting http://localhost:1201/config-client/dev/master returns JSON similar to:

{
  "name": "config-client",
  "profiles": ["dev"],
  "label": "master",
  "propertySources": [
    {"name": "http://git.oschina.net/didispace/config-repo-demo/config-client-dev.yml", "source": {"info.profile": "dev"}},
    {"name": "http://git.oschina.net/didispace/config-repo-demo/config-client.yml", "source": {"info.profile": "default"}}
  ]
}

Build the Config Client

Create a Spring Boot project named config-client and add the following dependencies:

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-config</artifactId>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

Add the main application class (same as the server example, without @EnableConfigServer ).

Create bootstrap.yml to point to the config server and specify the profile and label:

spring:
  application:
    name: config-client
  cloud:
    config:
      uri: http://localhost:1201/
      profile: default
      label: master
server:
  port: 2001

Note: these properties must be placed in bootstrap.yml (or bootstrap.properties ) so they are loaded before the application starts.

Run both the server and client. Access http://localhost:2001/info on the client to see the configuration fetched from the Git repository, e.g.: {"profile": "default"} Changing the client’s profile to dev will return the dev‑specific configuration.