How to run bootRun with spring profile via gradle task

Simplest way would be to define default and allow it to be overridden. I am not sure what is the use of systemProperty in this case. Simple arguments will do the job.

def profiles = 'prod'

bootRun {
  args = ["--spring.profiles.active=" + profiles]
}

To run dev:

./gradlew bootRun -Pdev

To add dependencies on your task you can do something like this:

task setDevProperties(dependsOn: bootRun) << {
  doFirst {
    System.setProperty('spring.profiles.active', profiles)
  }
}

There are lots of ways achieving this in Gradle.

Edit:

Configure separate configuration files per environment.

if (project.hasProperty('prod')) {
  apply from: 'gradle/profile_prod.gradle'
} else {
  apply from: 'gradle/profile_dev.gradle'
}

Each configuration can override tasks for example:

def profiles = 'prod'
bootRun {
  systemProperty "spring.profiles.active", activeProfile
}

Run by providing prod flag in this case just like that:

./gradlew <task> -Pprod

For those folks using Spring Boot 2.0+, you can use the following to setup a task that will run the app with a given set of profiles.

task bootRunDev(type: org.springframework.boot.gradle.tasks.run.BootRun, dependsOn: 'build') {
    group = 'Application'

    doFirst() {
        main = bootJar.mainClassName
        classpath = sourceSets.main.runtimeClasspath
        systemProperty 'spring.profiles.active', 'dev'
    }
}

Then you can simply run ./gradlew bootRunDev or similar from your IDE.

Environment variables can be used to set spring properties as described in the documentation. So, to set the active profiles (spring.profiles.active) you can use the following code on Unix systems:

SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=test gradle clean bootRun

And on Windows you can use:

SET SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE=test
gradle clean bootRun

Spring Boot v2 Gradle plugin docs provide an answer:

6.1. Passing arguments to your application

Like all JavaExec tasks, arguments can be passed into bootRun from the command line using --args='<arguments>' when using Gradle 4.9 or later.

To run server with active profile set to dev:

$ ./gradlew bootRun --args='--spring.profiles.active=dev'