16. 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.

[Tip]Tip

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

16.1 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 an auto-configuration report to the console.

16.2 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 @EnableAutoConfiguration to disable them, as shown in the following example:

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.*;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.*;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.*;

@Configuration
@EnableAutoConfiguration(exclude={DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class})
public class MyConfiguration {
}

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

[Tip]Tip

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