@nxrocks/nx-spring-boot:serve uses project .env, ./gradlew bootRun does not

[tschaffter]

I'm migrating Java projects from Maven to Gradle in the Nx monorepo Sage-Bionetworks/challenge-registry. I'm new to Gradle but the transition so far has been smooth minus one issue described in detailed in this post.

To summarize, an app has a file .env that includes variables used in the Spring Boot app file application.yml. When starting the app with nx serve <app-name>, the app successfully starts, i.e. the values defined in .env are successfully accessed by the app.

When I move to the app folder and run ./gradlew bootRun, which is the command run under the hood by nx serve <app-name>, the app fails to start because the values defined in .env are not used by the app. Starting the app with DB_URL=<value> ./gradlew bootRun works.

What could be the difference between running nx serve <app-name> from the workspace root folder and running ./gradlew bootRun from the app folder?

Thanks for your help!

[tinesoft]

Hi Thomas,

the response to your question is here: https://nx.dev/recipe/define-environment-variables

Indeed, it is Nx that loads the .env file and makes the variables it contains, available as environment variables.

This is not something gradle wrapper (nor maven wrapper) do by default (not their job), thus the need to combine them with another command

[tschaffter]

Thanks Tine, this makes sense!