Spring Boot Development

Spring Boot Development Skill

This skill provides comprehensive guidance for building modern Spring Boot applications using auto-configuration, dependency injection, REST APIs, Spring Data, Spring Security, and enterprise Java patterns based on official Spring Boot documentation.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Building enterprise REST APIs and microservices
• Creating web applications with Spring MVC
• Developing data-driven applications with JPA and databases
• Implementing authentication and authorization with Spring Security
• Building production-ready applications with actuator and monitoring
• Creating scalable backend services with Spring Boot
• Migrating from traditional Spring to Spring Boot
• Developing cloud-native applications
• Building event-driven systems with messaging
• Creating batch processing applications

Core Concepts

Auto-Configuration

Spring Boot automatically configures your application based on the dependencies you have added to the project. This reduces boilerplate configuration significantly.

How Auto-Configuration Works:

@SpringBootApplication
public class MyApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(MyApplication.class, args);
    }
}

The @SpringBootApplication annotation is a combination of:

• @Configuration: Tags the class as a source of bean definitions
• @EnableAutoConfiguration: Enables Spring Boot's auto-configuration mechanism
• @ComponentScan: Enables component scanning in the current package and sub-packages

Conditional Auto-Configuration:

@Configuration
@ConditionalOnClass(DataSource.class)
@ConditionalOnProperty(name = "spring.datasource.url")
public class DataSourceAutoConfiguration {

    @Bean
    @ConditionalOnMissingBean
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        return DataSourceBuilder.create().build();
    }
}

Customizing Auto-Configuration:

// Exclude specific auto-configurations
@SpringBootApplication(exclude = {DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class})
public class MyApplication {
    // ...
}

// Or in application.properties
// spring.autoconfigure.exclude=org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.DataSourceAutoConfiguration

Dependency Injection

Spring's IoC (Inversion of Control) container manages object creation and dependency injection.

Constructor Injection (Recommended):

@Service
public class UserService {

    private final UserRepository userRepository;
    private final EmailService emailService;

    // Constructor injection - recommended approach
    public UserService(UserRepository userRepository, EmailService emailService) {
        this.userRepository = userRepository;
        this.emailService = emailService;
    }

    public User createUser(User user) {
        User saved = userRepository.save(user);
        emailService.sendWelcomeEmail(saved);
        return saved;
    }
}

Field Injection (Not Recommended):

@Service
public class UserService {

    @Autowired  // Avoid field injection
    private UserRepository userRepository;

    // Difficult to test and creates tight coupling
}

Setter Injection (Optional Dependencies):

@Service
public class UserService {

    private UserRepository userRepository;
    private EmailService emailService;

    @Autowired
    public void setUserRepository(UserRepository userRepository) {
        this.userRepository = userRepository;
    }

    @Autowired(required = false)
    public void setEmailService(EmailService emailService) {
        this.emailService = emailService;
    }
}

Component Stereotypes:

@Component  // Generic component
public class MyComponent { }

@Service    // Business logic layer
public class MyService { }

@Repository // Data access layer
public class MyRepository { }

@Controller // Presentation layer (web)
public class MyController { }

@RestController // REST API controller
public class MyRestController { }

Spring Web (REST APIs)

Build RESTful web services with Spring MVC annotations.

Basic REST Controller:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/users")
public class UserController {

    private final UserService userService;

    public UserController(UserService userService) {
        this.userService = userService;
    }

    @GetMapping
    public List<User> getAllUsers() {
        return userService.findAll();
    }

    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<User> getUserById(@PathVariable Long id) {
        return userService.findById(id)
            .map(ResponseEntity::ok)
            .orElse(ResponseEntity.notFound().build());
    }

    @PostMapping
    public ResponseEntity<User> createUser(@RequestBody @Valid User user) {
        User created = userService.save(user);
        URI location = ServletUriComponentsBuilder
            .fromCurrentRequest()
            .path("/{id}")
            .buildAndExpand(created.getId())
            .toUri();
        return ResponseEntity.created(location).body(created);
    }

    @PutMapping("/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<User> updateUser(@PathVariable Long id,
                                          @RequestBody @Valid User user) {
        return userService.update(id, user)
            .map(ResponseEntity::ok)
            .orElse(ResponseEntity.notFound().build());
    }

    @DeleteMapping("/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<Void> deleteUser(@PathVariable Long id) {
        if (userService.delete(id)) {
            return ResponseEntity.noContent().build();
        }
        return ResponseEntity.notFound().build();
    }
}

Request Mapping Variations:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/products")
public class ProductController {

    // Query parameters
    @GetMapping("/search")
    public List<Product> search(@RequestParam String name,
                               @RequestParam(required = false) String category) {
        return productService.search(name, category);
    }

    // Multiple path variables
    @GetMapping("/categories/{categoryId}/products/{productId}")
    public Product getProductInCategory(@PathVariable Long categoryId,
                                       @PathVariable Long productId) {
        return productService.findInCategory(categoryId, productId);
    }

    // Request headers
    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public Product getProduct(@PathVariable Long id,
                             @RequestHeader("Accept-Language") String language) {
        return productService.find(id, language);
    }

    // Matrix variables
    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public Product getProductWithMatrix(@PathVariable Long id,
                                       @MatrixVariable Map<String, String> filters) {
        return productService.findWithFilters(id, filters);
    }
}

Response Handling:

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/orders")
public class OrderController {

    // Return different status codes
    @PostMapping
    public ResponseEntity<Order> createOrder(@RequestBody Order order) {
        Order created = orderService.create(order);
        return ResponseEntity.status(HttpStatus.CREATED).body(created);
    }

    // Custom headers
    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<Order> getOrder(@PathVariable Long id) {
        Order order = orderService.findById(id);
        return ResponseEntity.ok()
            .header("X-Order-Version", order.getVersion().toString())
            .body(order);
    }

    // No content response
    @DeleteMapping("/{id}")
    public ResponseEntity<Void> deleteOrder(@PathVariable Long id) {
        orderService.delete(id);
        return ResponseEntity.noContent().build();
    }
}

Spring Data JPA

Spring Data JPA provides repository abstractions for database access.

Entity Definition:

@Entity
@Table(name = "users")
public class User {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;