SpringCloud-Spring Cloud Context

A Spring Cloud application operates by creating a “bootstrap” context, which is a parent context for the main application. It is responsible for loading configuration properties from the external sources and for decrypting properties in the local external configuration files. The two contexts share an Environment, which is the source of external properties for any Spring application.

By default, bootstrap properties (not bootstrap.properties but properties that are loaded during the bootstrap phase) are added with high precedence, so they cannot be overridden by local configuration.

The bootstrap context uses a different convention for locating external configuration than the main application context. Instead of application.yml (or .properties), you can use bootstrap.yml, keeping the external configuration for bootstrap and main context nicely separate.