How do you configure Spring Retry using application properties in Spring Boot?

Spring Retry itself does not directly read application.properties — its configuration is annotation or bean-driven. However, Spring Boot's auto-configuration for retry integrates with property placeholders, allowing you to externalize retry parameters using Spring Expression Language (SpEL) references in annotations.

Externalizing retry parameters via properties:

# application.properties
retry.maxAttempts=5
retry.delay=2000
retry.multiplier=1.5

@Retryable(
    retryFor = Exception.class,
    maxAttemptsExpression = "${retry.maxAttempts}",
    backoff = @Backoff(
        delayExpression = "${retry.delay}",
        multiplierExpression = "${retry.multiplier}"
    )
)
public void callApi() { ... }

This approach lets you change retry behavior per environment without recompiling. The attributes that accept SpEL expressions are: maxAttemptsExpression, delayExpression, maxDelayExpression, multiplierExpression, and randomExpression.

Note that when using SpEL expressions in annotations, the annotation attributes ending in Expression must be used — not the plain numeric ones. Mixing both (e.g., setting both maxAttempts and maxAttemptsExpression) will result in a compilation or runtime error.

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