How do I generate build-info.properties in the IntelliJ “out” directory on debug/run for a Spring Boot project?

Question

In my build.gradle, I have added spring build info:

springBoot {
    mainClass = "${springBootMainClass}"

    buildInfo() {
        additionalProperties = [
                name: "${appName}",
                version: "${version}-${buildNumber}",
                time: buildTime()
        ]
    }
}

def buildTime() {
    final dateFormat = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ")
    dateFormat.timeZone = TimeZone.getTimeZone('GMT')
    dateFormat.format(new Date())
}

When I run from the command line, this correctly adds the /META-INF/build-info.properties file into /build/resources/main so that the "/info" endpoint shows the build information in JSON.

When I run from IntelliJ's run/debug button, IntelliJ does not use the /build directory but instead uses the /out directory and also does not run that gradle task, so the /info endpoint has empty JSON.

How can I make it generate that file and put it in the /out directory?

Answer 1

Enable Delegate IDE build/run actions to Gradle option in Settings (Preferences) | Build, Execution, Deployment | Build Tools | Gradle | Runner tab.

Answer 2

I have exactly the same need, and I don't want to use "delegate IDE build/run action to Gradle" for different (good) reasons.

In my case I don't need that file /META-INF/build-info.properties to be up-to-date in IDEA during develop phase, I just need this file to be available in the "run" classpath (under /out/...), else Spring won't be able to create and inject the BuildProperties bean when launching my app from IDEA run/debug tool.

So here is a simple solution if your are also in my case:

1) create a dummy "dev" (or "snapshot") version of the build-info.properties in the main resources directory ( src/main/resources/META-INF/build-info.properties )

# DO NOT EDIT (will be overriden by Spring boot plugin )
build.time=2019-05-07T11\:32\:31.581Z
build.artifact=myapp
build.group=org.mycompany
build.name=myapp
build.version=dev

This dev version will be automatically copied into IDEA /out/production/resources directory when building project from IDEA

2) Create a task dependency between bootBuildInfo task and processResources tasks, to make sure that Spring boot plugin will override the "dev" version with up-to-date version when building the app jar:

bootBuildInfo.mustRunAfter processResources

This way, SpringBoot gradle plugin will override the file copied from sources by processResources task, with its auto-generated up-to-date file.