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search-path

Last updated: August 12, 2026

--search-path is a global argument that specifies a complete list of location(s) to search for files like changelogs. You can specify multiple paths by separating them with commas. --search-path is only used to read files and does not specify files to write to. It is available in Liquibase 4.13.0+. For more information, see How Liquibase Finds Files: Liquibase Search Path.

Uses

Liquibase uses the paths to files as part of changeset identifiers. It is important for these paths to remain consistent and stable, because they are often included in shared changelog files, even when the physical location of those files may change from machine to machine. The search path is the list of base physical locations where given changelog paths can be found. For each file to look up, Liquibase will check all those locations for the file.

Separate multiple files with commas. For example, if your referenced file path is db.changelog.xml and your search path is /Users/example/liquibase,/projects/global, Liquibase will look for /Users/example/liquibase/db.changelog.xml and /projects/global/db.changelog.xml.

You can also use --search-path to specify remote paths to Amazon AWS S3 files. For more information, see Use --search-path with remote files. The search path can include both a dot (current working directory) and an S3 URL. For example:

liquibase --search-path=".,s3://engineeringteam/smassaro/to-use" checks run

Syntax

You can set this parameter in the following ways:

Option

Syntax

Liquibase properties file (defaults file)

liquibase.searchPath: <string>

Global flow file argument

globalArgs: { search-path: "<string>" }

Global CLI parameter

liquibase --search-path=<string> update --changelog-file=example-changelog.xml

JVM system property (JAVA_OPTS environment variable)

Unix:

JAVA_OPTS=-Dliquibase.searchPath=<string>

Windows:

JAVA_OPTS=-D"liquibase.searchPath"=<string>

Liquibase environment variable

LIQUIBASE_SEARCH_PATH=<string>

For more information, see Working with command parameters

If you use Maven, Ant, Spring Boot, or other integrations, you can set your search path in the default files, such as pom.xml, application.yml, and others. Check the Tools & Integrations documentation for more information.

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