Spring: overriding one application.property from command line

I have an application.properties file with default variable values. I want to be able to change ONE of them upon running with mvn spring-boot:run. I found how to change the whole file, but I only want to change one or two of these properties.

You can pass in individual properties as command-line arguments. For example, if you wanted to set server.port, you could do the following when launching an executable jar:

java -jar your-app.jar --server.port=8081

Alternatively, if you're using mvn spring-boot:run with Spring boot 2.x:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--server.port=8081"

Or, if you're using Spring Boot 1.x:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.arguments="--server.port=8081"

You can also configure the arguments for spring-boot:run in your application's pom.xml so they don't have to be specified on the command line every time:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <arguments>
            <argument>--server.port=8085</argument>
        </arguments>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

To update a little things, the Spring boot 1.X Maven plugin relies on the --Drun.arguments Maven user property but the Spring Boot 2.X Maven plugin relies on the -Dspring-boot.run.arguments Maven user property.

So for Spring 2, you need to do :

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--server.port=8081"

And if you need to pass multiple arguments, you have to use , as separator and never use whitespace between arguments :

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--server.port=8081,--foo=bar"

About the the maven plugin configuration and the way of passing the argument from a fat jar, it didn't change.
So the very good Andy Wilkinson answer is still right.

Quick update:

if you are using the latest versions of spring-boot 2.X and maven 3.X, the below command line will override your server port:

java -jar -Dserver.port=9999   your_jar_file.jar

If not working with comma, to override some custom properties or spring boot properties in multiple mode, use whitespace instead of comma, like this code bellow:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments="--server.port=8899 --your.custom.property=custom"

You can set an environment variable to orverride the properties. For example, you have an property name test.props=1 . If you have an environment variable TEST_PROPS spring boot will automatically override it.

export TEST_PROPS=2
mvn spring-boot:run

You can also create a json string with all the properties you need to override and pass it with -Dspring.application.json or export the json with SPRING_APPLICATION_JSON.

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring.application.json='{"test.props":"2"}'

Or just pass the properties with -Dtest.props=2

mvn spring-boot:run -Dtest.props=2

Tested on spring boot 2.1.17 and maven 3.6.3