This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Boot 3.4.1!

Auto-configuration

Spring Boot auto-configuration attempts to automatically configure your Spring application based on the jar dependencies that you have added. For example, if HSQLDB is on your classpath, and you have not manually configured any database connection beans, then Spring Boot auto-configures an in-memory database.

You need to opt-in to auto-configuration by adding the @EnableAutoConfiguration or @SpringBootApplication annotations to one of your @Configuration classes.

You should only ever add one @SpringBootApplication or @EnableAutoConfiguration annotation. We generally recommend that you add one or the other to your primary @Configuration class only.

Gradually Replacing Auto-configuration

Auto-configuration is non-invasive. At any point, you can start to define your own configuration to replace specific parts of the auto-configuration. For example, if you add your own DataSource bean, the default embedded database support backs away.

If you need to find out what auto-configuration is currently being applied, and why, start your application with the --debug switch. Doing so enables debug logs for a selection of core loggers and logs a conditions report to the console.

Disabling Specific Auto-configuration Classes

If you find that specific auto-configuration classes that you do not want are being applied, you can use the exclude attribute of @SpringBootApplication to disable them, as shown in the following example:

Java
Kotlin

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.DataSourceAutoConfiguration;

@SpringBootApplication(exclude = { DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class })
public class MyApplication {

}

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.DataSourceAutoConfiguration

@SpringBootApplication(exclude = [DataSourceAutoConfiguration::class])
class MyApplication

If the class is not on the classpath, you can use the excludeName attribute of the annotation and specify the fully qualified name instead. If you prefer to use @EnableAutoConfiguration rather than @SpringBootApplication, exclude and excludeName are also available. Finally, you can also control the list of auto-configuration classes to exclude by using the spring.autoconfigure.exclude property.

You can define exclusions both at the annotation level and by using the property.

Even though auto-configuration classes are public, the only aspect of the class that is considered public API is the name of the class which can be used for disabling the auto-configuration. The actual contents of those classes, such as nested configuration classes or bean methods are for internal use only and we do not recommend using those directly.

Auto-configuration Packages

Auto-configuration packages are the packages that various auto-configured features look in by default when scanning for things such as entities and Spring Data repositories. The @EnableAutoConfiguration annotation (either directly or through its presence on @SpringBootApplication) determines the default auto-configuration package. Additional packages can be configured using the @AutoConfigurationPackage annotation.