spring boot loading jars (application dependencies and external file system jars)

Question

I am trying to figure out what is the best way to setup a spring boot application in such a way that its has its own jar dependencies but additional jars are added to classpath at runtime when its being run as java -jar command. What approach makes more sense

1. Use the original jar (without dependencies added to it) and place all jars (application and runtime) in a folder on file system and use PropertiesLauncher to specify the loader.path to jars folder.

2. Use the fat jar (with application jars) place the additional jars on the filesystem and somehow include those as additional jars that need to be added to classpath. Not sure how this can be done.

3. Is there another better way to do this

Answer 1

The PropertiesLauncher was designed to work with fat jars, so you should be able to keep the fat jar and add as many additional dependencies as you like in an external location, e.g. with loader.path=/opt/app/lib:lib. I guess that's your option 2? If it doesn't work we can discuss in a github issue.