diff --git a/roles/product_startup/defaults/main.yml b/roles/product_startup/defaults/main.yml
index 70b7708..02d2b65 100644
--- a/roles/product_startup/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/roles/product_startup/defaults/main.yml
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 # Mostly for molecule testing, as skip-tags doesn't work with handlers.
 atl_startup_enable: true
-atl_startup_restart: "{{ lookup('env', 'ATL_STARTUP_RESTART') or true }}"
+atl_startup_restart: "{{ lookup('env', 'ATL_STARTUP_RESTART') or true | bool }}"
 
 atl_startup_script_map:
   jira: "bin/start-jira.sh"