spring-boot-maven-plugin does not act transitively when excluding dependency

Using Spring-boot 1.3.5.RELEASE

I’m using org.springframework.boot.loader.PropertiesLauncher to pick up some dependencies provided by the platform so I don’t want them bundled in the jar. So i’m trying to exclude a single dependency and all of it’s transitive dependencies.

1. Marking the dependency as <scope>provided</scope> does not exclude it or any of it’s transitive dependencies. (But I understand this is by design)
2. Marking the dependency as <optional>true</optional> does not exclude it or any of it’s transitive dependencies.
3. Using spring-boot-maven-plugin configuration to exclude the dependency works but it does NOT exclude any of it’s transitive dependencies.

                    <excludes>
                        <exclude>
                            <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
                            <artifactId>foo</artifactId>
                        </exclude>
                    </excludes>    

There doesn’t seem to be a spring-boot-maven-plugin option to act transitively when excluding??

[Karthik-Rangasamy]

Wondering why it is not supported? What is the point of including the transitive dependencies when its parent is not included?

[Aaaaaaron]

confused too.