Spring Cloud Config: client doesn't attempt to connect to the config server - spring-boot

Question

I'm trying to create a simple Spring Cloud Config server/client setup and am loosely following the documentation:
https://cloud.spring.io/spring-cloud-config/reference/html/
I've so far implemented a server that seems to work correctly, i.e. return the correct property values when I call the corresponding endpoint:
GET http://localhost:8888/config-client/development
{
"name": "config-client",
"profiles": [
"development"
],
"label": null,
"version": null,
"state": null,
"propertySources": [
{
"name": "classpath:/config/config-client-development.properties",
"source": {
"user.role": "Developer"
}
}
]
}
I'm, however, not having any luck with getting the client to connect to the server. I have done the following:
Added the spring-cloud-starter-config dependency:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-config</artifactId>
</dependency>
Added a bootstrap.properties file:
spring.application.name=config-client
spring.profiles.active=development
spring.cloud.config.uri=http://localhost:8888
But I'm still getting a
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'user.role' in value "${user.role}"
when trying to run the client application.
There is nothing in the application log that even looks like the client is attempting to communicate with the configuration server.
Link to a minimal GitHub repository that reproduces the issue:
https://github.com/Bragolgirith/spring-cloud-minimal
Steps to reproduce:
Build and run the config-service application
Build and run the config-client application
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

OK, mistery solved.
It seems a new Spring Cloud version was released a week ago (https://spring.io/blog/2020/10/07/spring-cloud-2020-0-0-m4-aka-ilford-is-available) that has a new way to activate the bootstrap process - now it doesn't happen by default, but requires adding an additional dependency:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-bootstrap</artifactId>
</dependency>
Although this new version is now the default you get when using the
Spring Initializr, the documentation is still not updated to reflect the changes - they are only briefly mentioned in the release notes.
As an alternative to using the abovementioned spring-cloud-starter-bootstrap dependency and a bootstrap.properties file, it seems the following is now also possible (and even preferred):
application.properties
spring.application.name=config-client
spring.profiles.active=development
spring.config.import=configserver:http://localhost:8888