Spring Framework provides two convenient classes that can be used to load YAML documents. The YamlPropertiesFactoryBean will load YAML as Properties and the YamlMapFactoryBean will load YAML as a Map.

For example, the following YAML document:

environments:
    dev:
        url: http://dev.bar.com
        name: Developer Setup
    prod:
        url: http://foo.bar.com
        name: My Cool App

Would be transformed into these properties:

environments.dev.url=http://dev.bar.com
environments.dev.name=Developer Setup
environments.prod.url=http://foo.bar.com
environments.prod.name=My Cool App

YAML lists are represented as property keys with [index] dereferencers, for example this YAML:

my:
   servers:
       - dev.bar.com
       - foo.bar.com

Would be transformed into these properties:

my.servers[0]=dev.bar.com
my.servers[1]=foo.bar.com

To bind to properties like that using the Spring DataBinder utilities (which is what @ConfigurationProperties does) you need to have a property in the target bean of type java.util.List (or Set) and you either need to provide a setter, or initialize it with a mutable value, e.g. this will bind to the properties above

@ConfigurationProperties(prefix="my")
public class Config {

    private List<String> servers = new ArrayList<String>();

    public List<String> getServers() {
        return this.servers;
    }
}

The YamlPropertySourceLoader class can be used to expose YAML as a PropertySource in the Spring Environment. This allows you to use the familiar @Value annotation with placeholders syntax to access YAML properties.

You can specify multiple profile-specific YAML documents in a single file by using a spring.profiles key to indicate when the document applies. For example:

server:
    address: 192.168.1.100
---
spring:
    profiles: development
server:
    address: 127.0.0.1
---
spring:
    profiles: production
server:
    address: 192.168.1.120

In the example above, the server.address property will be 127.0.0.1 if the development profile is active. If the development and production profiles are not enabled, then the value for the property will be 192.168.1.100.

The default profiles are activated if none are explicitly active when the application context starts. So in this YAML we set a value for security.user.password that is only available in the "default" profile:

server:
  port: 8000
---
spring:
  profiles: default
security:
  user:
    password: weak

whereas in this example, the password is always set because it isn’t attached to any profile, and it would have to be explicitly reset in all other profiles as necessary:

server:
  port: 8000
security:
  user:
    password: weak

Spring profiles designated using the "spring.profiles" element may optionally be negated using the ! character. If both negated and non-negated profiles are specified for a single document, at least one non-negated profile must match and no negated profiles may match.

YAML files can’t be loaded via the @PropertySource annotation. So in the case that you need to load values that way, you need to use a properties file.

As we have seen above, any YAML content is ultimately transformed to properties. That process may be counter intuitive when overriding “list” properties via a profile.

For example, assume a MyPojo object with name and description attributes that are null by default. Let’s expose a list of MyPojo from FooProperties:

@ConfigurationProperties("foo")
public class FooProperties {

    private final List<MyPojo> list = new ArrayList<>();

    public List<MyPojo> getList() {
        return this.list;
    }

}

Consider the following configuration:

foo:
  list:
    - name: my name
      description: my description
---
spring:
  profiles: dev
foo:
  list:
    - name: my another name

If the dev profile isn’t active, FooProperties.list will contain one MyPojo entry as defined above. If the dev profile is enabled however, the list will still only contain one entry (with name “my another name” and description null). This configuration will not add a second MyPojo instance to the list, and it won’t merge the items.

When a collection is specified in multiple profiles, the one with highest priority is used (and only that one):

foo:
  list:
    - name: my name
      description: my description
    - name: another name
      description: another description
---
spring:
  profiles: dev
foo:
  list:
     - name: my another name

In the example above, considering that the dev profile is active, FooProperties.list will contain one MyPojo entry (with name “my another name” and description null).

As well as using @ConfigurationProperties to annotate a class, you can also use it on public @Bean methods. This can be particularly useful when you want to bind properties to third-party components that are outside of your control.

To configure a bean from the Environment properties, add @ConfigurationProperties to its bean registration:

@ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "foo")
@Bean
public FooComponent fooComponent() {
    ...
}

Any property defined with the foo prefix will be mapped onto that FooComponent bean in a similar manner as the ConnectionProperties example above.

Spring Boot uses some relaxed rules for binding Environment properties to @ConfigurationProperties beans, so there doesn’t need to be an exact match between the Environment property name and the bean property name. Common examples where this is useful include dashed separated (e.g. context-path binds to contextPath), and capitalized (e.g. PORT binds to port) environment properties.

For example, given the following @ConfigurationProperties class:

@ConfigurationProperties(prefix="person")
public class OwnerProperties {

    private String firstName;

    public String getFirstName() {
        return this.firstName;
    }

    public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
        this.firstName = firstName;
    }

}

The following properties names can all be used:

Spring will attempt to coerce the external application properties to the right type when it binds to the @ConfigurationProperties beans. If you need custom type conversion you can provide a ConversionService bean (with bean id conversionService) or custom property editors (via a CustomEditorConfigurer bean) or custom Converters (with bean definitions annotated as @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding).

Note

As this bean is requested very early during the application lifecycle, make sure to limit the dependencies that your ConversionService is using. Typically, any dependency that you require may not be fully initialized at creation time. You may want to rename your custom ConversionService if it’s not required for configuration keys coercion and only rely on custom converters qualified with @ConfigurationPropertiesBinding.

Spring Boot will attempt to validate external configuration, by default using JSR-303 (if it is on the classpath). You can simply add JSR-303 javax.validation constraint annotations to your @ConfigurationProperties class:

@ConfigurationProperties(prefix="connection")
public class ConnectionProperties {

    @NotNull
    private InetAddress remoteAddress;

    // ... getters and setters

}

In order to validate values of nested properties, you must annotate the associated field as @Valid to trigger its validation. For example, building upon the above ConnectionProperties example:

@ConfigurationProperties(prefix="connection")
public class ConnectionProperties {

    @NotNull
    @Valid
    private RemoteAddress remoteAddress;

    // ... getters and setters

    public static class RemoteAddress {

        @NotEmpty
        public String hostname;

        // ... getters and setters

    }

}

You can also add a custom Spring Validator by creating a bean definition called configurationPropertiesValidator. The @Bean method should be declared static. The configuration properties validator is created very early in the application’s lifecycle and declaring the @Bean method as static allows the bean to be created without having to instantiate the @Configuration class. This avoids any problems that may be caused by early instantiation. There is a property validation sample so you can see how to set things up.

	Tip
	The spring-boot-actuator module includes an endpoint that exposes all @ConfigurationProperties beans. Simply point your web browser to /configprops or use the equivalent JMX endpoint. See the Production ready features. section for details.

@Value is a core container feature and it does not provide the same features as type-safe Configuration Properties. The table below summarizes the features that are supported by @ConfigurationProperties and @Value:

If you define a set of configuration keys for your own components, we recommend you to group them in a POJO annotated with @ConfigurationProperties. Please also be aware that since @Value does not support relaxed binding, it isn’t a great candidate if you need to provide the value using environment variables.

Finally, while you can write a SpEL expression in @Value, such expressions are not processed from Application property files.