i am using the parameters textbox to set "grails.env=development" without the quotes, but i tied several other values against that key, and the grails plugin will build the command line correctly: "grails -Dgrails.env=development war", and submit it to cmd.exe. "cmd.exe /c grails -Dgrails.env=development war" for some reason, the cmd.exe hoses the grails CLI, it doesnot see the -D expression so grails basically throws that away and then builds production instead. frankly this entire interface for using grails is not documented and makes little sense. if you have a text box for the parameters, why not just let us put the entire command line that we want in that textbox. and not bother with the idea of piecing the command line together behind the scenes. KISS. also, i dont see any reason why to submit this to cmd and not just exec grails per se. i submitted this as a blocker.