Natan Code

How to Manage Profiles in Spring Boot (with Docker)?

• Natan Ferreira
• July 31, 2025July 31, 2025
• 0
• 1241

Spring Boot allows you to use profiles to separate configurations by environment, such as development (dev), staging (staging), and production (prod). This makes it easier to manage settings like database URLs, feature flags, and other environment-specific behaviors.

In this post, you’ll learn how to:

• Create profiles in Spring Boot
• Use docker-compose.yml to define the active profile

📁 File Structure

.
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── src
│   └── main
│       └── resources
│           ├── application.properties
│           ├── application-dev.properties
│           └── application-prod.properties
└── pom.xml

🔧 Configuration Files

🔧 application.properties (common)

spring.application.name=profiles

🔧 application-dev.properties

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:devdb
spring.datasource.username=dev
spring.datasource.password=dev123

🔧 application-prod.properties

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://mysql:3306/proddb
spring.datasource.username=root
spring.datasource.password=prod123

Each file contains specific configurations for its corresponding profile.

🧠 Reading the Active Profile in Code

You can access the active profile in your code using @Value. For example:

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Value;
import org.springframework.boot.CommandLineRunner;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class StartupLogger implements CommandLineRunner {
    @Value("${spring.profiles.active:default}")
    private String profile;

    public void run(String... args) {
        System.out.println(" Active Profile : " + profile);
    }
}

docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"

services:
  app:
    build:
      context: .
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    environment:
      - SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=dev
    depends_on:
      - mysql

  mysql:
    image: mysql:8.0
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: prod123
      MYSQL_DATABASE: proddb
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"

🏗️ Creating a Docker Image

Now we need to build a Docker image for the application. How do we do that?

First, package your application into a .jar:

clean install

Then build the Docker image:

docker image build -t profile .

This command creates a Docker image named profile.

▶️ Running the Container

Now you can run the container using the image we created:

docker run -e SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=dev profile

By using the -e flag, we define the active Spring profile as dev.

🐳 Using Docker Compose

You can also use Docker Compose with the following command:

docker compose up

Inside your docker-compose.yml, you can set the active profile like this:

environment:
  - SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=prod

Conclusion

Using Spring Boot profiles with Docker Compose gives you better control over how your application behaves across different environments. With minimal configuration, you can isolate responsibilities and achieve greater deployment flexibility.

The key is to keep your environments decoupled and parameterized — exactly what Spring Boot + Docker Compose provides in a clean and powerful way.

How to use Domain Events in Spring?

Why is it important to study data structures and algorithms?