What causes "Process terminated with exit code: {}" in spring-projects/spring-boot?

Scroll up in the build log — the forked process printed its own exception/stack trace immediately before this message; fix that root cause.

spring-projects/spring-boot · error · MojoExecutionException

Process terminated with exit code: {}

Error message

Process terminated with exit code: {}

What it means

Thrown by JavaProcessExecutor.run as a MojoExecutionException when the forked JVM exits with a code that is neither 0 (success) nor 130 (SIGINT). This is the plugin reporting that the application/process it launched (typically via spring-boot:run with fork, or an AOT/process goal) terminated abnormally. The plugin itself is healthy — the child process failed. Exit 130 is intentionally treated as success because Ctrl-C during run should not fail the build.

Source

Thrown at build-plugin/spring-boot-maven-plugin/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/maven/JavaProcessExecutor.java:75

		this.runProcessCustomizer = runProcessCustomizer;
	}

	JavaProcessExecutor withRunProcessCustomizer(Consumer<RunProcess> customizer) {
		Consumer<RunProcess> combinedCustomizer = (this.runProcessCustomizer != null)
				? this.runProcessCustomizer.andThen(customizer) : customizer;
		return new JavaProcessExecutor(this.mavenSession, this.toolchainManager, combinedCustomizer);
	}

	int run(File workingDirectory, List<String> args, Map<String, String> environmentVariables)
			throws MojoExecutionException {
		RunProcess runProcess = new RunProcess(workingDirectory, getJavaExecutable());
		if (this.runProcessCustomizer != null) {
			this.runProcessCustomizer.accept(runProcess);
		}
		try {
			int exitCode = runProcess.run(true, args, environmentVariables);
			if (!hasTerminatedSuccessfully(exitCode)) {
				throw new MojoExecutionException("Process terminated with exit code: " + exitCode);
			}
			return exitCode;
		}
		catch (IOException ex) {
			throw new MojoExecutionException("Process execution failed", ex);
		}
	}

	RunProcess runAsync(File workingDirectory, List<String> args, Map<String, String> environmentVariables)
			throws MojoExecutionException {
		try {
			RunProcess runProcess = new RunProcess(workingDirectory, getJavaExecutable());
			runProcess.run(false, args, environmentVariables);
			return runProcess;
		}
		catch (IOException ex) {
			throw new MojoExecutionException("Process execution failed", ex);
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5b2dbdbb8b)

Solutions

Scroll up in the build log — the forked process printed its own exception/stack trace immediately before this message; fix that root cause.
Run with -Dspring-boot.run.fork=false only if you need the failure to surface in-process (not always supported).
Validate JVM arguments: -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments and any -javaagent paths.
If the exit code is 137, suspect OOMKill/container memory limits and increase -Xmx or container memory.

Example fix

// before — invalid JVM argument
mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments="-Xmx512 -Xms256"  // -Xmx missing unit
// after
mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments="-Xmx512m -Xms256m"

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

// When invoking spring-boot:run programmatically / wrapping the build
try {
    // invoke run/process goal
} catch (org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException ex) {
    String m = ex.getMessage();
    if (m != null && m.startsWith("Process terminated with exit code:")) {
        int code = Integer.parseInt(m.substring(m.lastIndexOf(':') + 1).trim());
        // surface child process logs; do not mask the real failure
    }
    throw ex;
}

Prevention

Always read the forked process output above the error — the root cause is there, not in this message.
Validate -javaagent paths and -Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments before running.
If exit code is 137, raise container/JVM memory limits.

When it happens

Trigger: spring-boot:run forking a JVM whose application throws an uncaught exception on startup; an AOT processing or test process exiting non-zero; the application's main method calling System.exit(nonzero); JVM failing to start (e.g. bad -Xmx, missing agent) and exiting with a JVM-reported code;OutOfMemoryError killing the JVM with a specific exit code.

Common situations: Application fails to boot (port in use, missing config, bean wiring error); JVM options are invalid (-Dspring-boot.run.jvmArguments); a -javaagent jar is missing or incompatible; native/AOT processor hits an error and exits 1; test process exits non-zero during process-test-aot.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of spring-projects/spring-boot@5b2dbdbb8b (2026-08-04). Data as JSON: /data/errors/91f4ba25dff18a4d.json. Report an issue: GitHub.