Maven users can inherit from the spring-boot-starter-parent project to obtain sensible defaults. The parent project provides the following features:

11.1.1 Inheriting the starter parent

To configure your project to inherit from the spring-boot-starter-parent simply set the parent:

<!-- Inherit defaults from Spring Boot -->
<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.0.RC5</version>
</parent>

	Note
	You should only need to specify the Spring Boot version number on this dependency. if you import additional starters, you can safely omit the version number.

<dependencyManagement>
     <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <!-- Import dependency management from Spring Boot -->
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.0.RC5</version>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<properties>
    <java.version>1.8</java.version>
</properties>

11.1.4 Using the Spring Boot Maven plugin

Spring Boot includes a Maven plugin that can package the project as an executable jar. Add the plugin to your <plugins> section if you want to use it:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

	Note
	You only need to add the plugin, there is no need for to configure it unless you want to change the settings defined in the parent.

Gradle users can directly import “starter POMs” in their dependencies section. Unlike Maven, there is no “super parent” to import to share some configuration.

apply plugin: 'java'

repositories { mavenCentral() }
dependencies {
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:1.0.0.RC5")
}

The spring-boot-gradle-plugin is also available and provides tasks to create executable jars and run projects from source. It also adds a ResolutionStrategy that enables you to omit the version number for “blessed” dependencies:

buildscript {
    repositories { mavenCentral() }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:1.0.0.RC5")
    }
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'spring-boot'

repositories { mavenCentral() }
dependencies {
    compile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
    testCompile("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test")
}

It is possible to build a Spring Boot project using Apache Ant, however, no special support or plugins are provided. Ant scripts can use the Ivy dependency system to import starter POMs.

See the Section 62.1, “Build an executable archive with Ant” “How-to” for more complete instructions.

Starter POMs are a set of convenient dependency descriptors that you can include in your application. You get a one-stop-shop for all the Spring and related technology that you need, without having to hunt through sample code and copy paste loads of dependency descriptors. For example, if you want to get started using Spring and JPA for database access, just include the spring-boot-starter-data-jpa dependency in your project, and you are good to go.

The starters contain a lot of the dependencies that you need to get a project up and running quickly and with a consistent, supported set of managed transitive dependencies.

The following application starters are provided by Spring Boot under the org.springframework.boot group:

In addition to the application starters, the following starters can be used to add production ready features.

Finally, Spring Boot includes some starters that can be used if you want to exclude or swap specific technical facets.