Run mvn spring-boot:run from parent module?

Question

I have a multi-module maven project like this:

my-parent
--my-domain
--my-service
--my-app <<< this is a Spring Boot module

I want to run mvn spring-boot:run command directly from the parent module without having to cd into the 'my-app' directory first.

I figure this is related to configuration of the spring-boot-maven-plugin but I can't seem to get it right.

I have tried the following:

1. Use spring-boot-starter-parent and otherwise default config with spring-boot-maven-plugin included in plugins section of my-app.
   Running mvn spring-boot:run from the parent results in:
   Failed to execute goal org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-maven-plugin:1.4.2.RELEASE:run (default-cli) on project my-parent: Unable to find a suitable main class, please add a 'mainClass' property -> [Help 1] in the parent module

2. Do NOT use spring-boot-starter-parent.
   Define spring-boot-dependencies in depManagement as described elewhere.
   Define spring-boot-maven-plugin in pluginManagement section of my-parent and include the plugin in plugins section of my-app module.
   Running mvn spring-boot:run from the parent results in same error as #1:
   Failed to execute goal org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-maven-plugin:1.4.2.RELEASE:run (default-cli) on project my-parent: Unable to find a suitable main class, please add a 'mainClass' property -> [Help 1]

3. Do NOT use spring-boot-starter-parent.
   Define spring-boot-dependencies in depManagement as described elewhere.
   Define spring-boot-maven-plugin in plugins section of my-app.
   Running mvn spring-boot:run from the parent results in:
   No plugin found for prefix 'spring-boot' in the current project and in the plugin groups

In all cases described above, running mvn spring-boot:run from the my-app directory works fine.

I figure there should be a way to make this work. In a traditional non-Boot Spring project it was fairly simple to configure tomcat7 plugin such that i could run mvn tomcat7:run-war from the parent and the webapp sub-module would start as expected

Answer 1

You can do it by adding following In parent pom:

  <build>     <plugins>       <plugin>         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>         <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>         <configuration>           <skip>true</skip>         </configuration>       </plugin>     </plugins>   </build> 

And in your In my-app (Spring Boot module) pom:

 <plugin>     <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>     <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>     <configuration>       <fork>true</fork>       <skip>false</skip>     </configuration>     <executions>       <execution>         <goals>           <goal>repackage</goal>         </goals>       </execution>     </executions>   </plugin> 

Now you can do execute in project root:

mvn -pl my-app -am spring-boot:run 

Additional references:

• spring-boot:run hot reload with multi module maven project · Issue #3436 · spring-projects/spring-boot · GitHub: in particular, this comment.

Answer 2

spring-boot maven plugin configuration options:

skip: skips the execution of sprint-boot:run  [default: false]  fork: Flag to indicate if the run processes should be forked [default: true] 

see spring-boot maven plugin parameters

maven options:

-pl, --projects: Comma-delimited list of specified reactor projects to build instead of all projects. A project can be specified by [groupId]:artifactId or by its relative path     -am, --also-make: If project list is specified, also build projects required by the list 

see maven CLI options