Developing Your First Spring Boot Application

This section describes how to develop a small “Hello World!” web application that highlights some of Spring Boot’s key features. You can choose between Maven or Gradle as the build system.

The spring.io website contains many “Getting Started” guides that use Spring Boot. If you need to solve a specific problem, check there first.

You can shortcut the steps below by going to start.spring.io and choosing the "Web" starter from the dependencies searcher. Doing so generates a new project structure so that you can start coding right away. Check the start.spring.io user guide for more details.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, open a terminal and run the following commands to ensure that you have a valid version of Java installed:

$ java -version
openjdk version "17.0.4.1" 2022-08-12 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.4.1+1-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0.4.1+1-LTS, mixed mode, sharing)

This sample needs to be created in its own directory. Subsequent instructions assume that you have created a suitable directory and that it is your current directory.

Maven

If you want to use Maven, ensure that you have Maven installed:

$ mvn -v
Apache Maven 3.8.5 (3599d3414f046de2324203b78ddcf9b5e4388aa0)
Maven home: usr/Users/developer/tools/maven/3.8.5
Java version: 17.0.4.1, vendor: BellSoft, runtime: /Users/developer/sdkman/candidates/java/17.0.4.1-librca

Gradle

If you want to use Gradle, ensure that you have Gradle installed:

$ gradle --version

------------------------------------------------------------
Gradle 8.1.1
------------------------------------------------------------

Build time:   2023-04-21 12:31:26 UTC
Revision:     1cf537a851c635c364a4214885f8b9798051175b

Kotlin:       1.8.10
Groovy:       3.0.15
Ant:          Apache Ant(TM) version 1.10.11 compiled on July 10 2021
JVM:          17.0.7 (BellSoft 17.0.7+7-LTS)
OS:           Linux 6.2.12-200.fc37.aarch64 aarch64

Setting Up the Project With Maven

We need to start by creating a Maven pom.xml file. The pom.xml is the recipe that is used to build your project. Open your favorite text editor and add the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

	<groupId>com.example</groupId>
	<artifactId>myproject</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>

	<parent>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
		<version>3.4.1</version>
	</parent>

	<!-- Additional lines to be added here... -->

</project>

The preceding listing should give you a working build.

You can test it by running mvn package (for now, you can ignore the “jar will be empty - no content was marked for inclusion!” warning).

At this point, you could import the project into an IDE (most modern Java IDEs include built-in support for Maven). For simplicity, we continue to use a plain text editor for this example.

Setting Up the Project With Gradle

We need to start by creating a Gradle build.gradle file. The build.gradle is the build script that is used to build your project. Open your favorite text editor and add the following:

plugins {
	id 'java'
	id 'org.springframework.boot' version '3.4.1'
}

apply plugin: 'io.spring.dependency-management'

group = 'com.example'
version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
sourceCompatibility = '17'

repositories {
	mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
}

The preceding listing should give you a working build. You can test it by running gradle classes.

At this point, you could import the project into an IDE (most modern Java IDEs include built-in support for Gradle). For simplicity, we continue to use a plain text editor for this example.

Adding Classpath Dependencies

Spring Boot provides a number of starters that let you add jars to your classpath. Starters provide dependencies that you are likely to need when developing a specific type of application.

Maven

Most Spring Boot applications use the spring-boot-starter-parent in the parent section of the POM. The spring-boot-starter-parent is a special starter that provides useful Maven defaults. It also provides a dependency-management section so that you can omit version tags for “blessed” dependencies.

Since we are developing a web application, we add a spring-boot-starter-web dependency. Before that, we can look at what we currently have by running the following command:

$ mvn dependency:tree

[INFO] com.example:myproject:jar:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT

The mvn dependency:tree command prints a tree representation of your project dependencies. You can see that spring-boot-starter-parent provides no dependencies by itself. To add the necessary dependencies, edit your pom.xml and add the spring-boot-starter-web dependency immediately below the parent section:

<dependencies>
	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
	</dependency>
</dependencies>

If you run mvn dependency:tree again, you see that there are now a number of additional dependencies, including the Tomcat web server and Spring Boot itself.

Gradle

Most Spring Boot applications use the org.springframework.boot Gradle plugin. This plugin provides useful defaults and Gradle tasks. The io.spring.dependency-management Gradle plugin provides dependency management so that you can omit version tags for “blessed” dependencies.

Since we are developing a web application, we add a spring-boot-starter-web dependency. Before that, we can look at what we currently have by running the following command:

$ gradle dependencies

> Task :dependencies

------------------------------------------------------------
Root project 'myproject'
------------------------------------------------------------

The gradle dependencies command prints a tree representation of your project dependencies. Right now, the project has no dependencies. To add the necessary dependencies, edit your build.gradle and add the spring-boot-starter-web dependency in the dependencies section:

dependencies {
	implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'
}

If you run gradle dependencies again, you see that there are now a number of additional dependencies, including the Tomcat web server and Spring Boot itself.

Writing the Code

To finish our application, we need to create a single Java file. By default, Maven and Gradle compile sources from src/main/java, so you need to create that directory structure and then add a file named src/main/java/MyApplication.java to contain the following code:

Java
Kotlin

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
@SpringBootApplication
public class MyApplication {

	@RequestMapping("/")
	String home() {
		return "Hello World!";
	}

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

}

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication
import org.springframework.boot.runApplication
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController

@RestController
@SpringBootApplication
class MyApplication {

	@RequestMapping("/")
	fun home() = "Hello World!"

}

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
	runApplication<MyApplication>(*args)
}

Although there is not much code here, quite a lot is going on. We step through the important parts in the next few sections.

The @RestController and @RequestMapping Annotations

The first annotation on our MyApplication class is @RestController. This is known as a stereotype annotation. It provides hints for people reading the code and for Spring that the class plays a specific role. In this case, our class is a web @Controller, so Spring considers it when handling incoming web requests.

The @RequestMapping annotation provides “routing” information. It tells Spring that any HTTP request with the / path should be mapped to the home method. The @RestController annotation tells Spring to render the resulting string directly back to the caller.

The @RestController and @RequestMapping annotations are Spring MVC annotations (they are not specific to Spring Boot). See the MVC section in the Spring Reference Documentation for more details.

The @SpringBootApplication Annotation

The second class-level annotation is @SpringBootApplication. This annotation is known as a meta-annotation, it combines @SpringBootConfiguration, @EnableAutoConfiguration and @ComponentScan.

Of those, the annotation we’re most interested in here is @EnableAutoConfiguration. @EnableAutoConfiguration tells Spring Boot to “guess” how you want to configure Spring, based on the jar dependencies that you have added. Since spring-boot-starter-web added Tomcat and Spring MVC, the auto-configuration assumes that you are developing a web application and sets up Spring accordingly.

Starters and Auto-configuration

Auto-configuration is designed to work well with starters, but the two concepts are not directly tied. You are free to pick and choose jar dependencies outside of the starters. Spring Boot still does its best to auto-configure your application.

The “main” Method

The final part of our application is the main method. This is a standard method that follows the Java convention for an application entry point. Our main method delegates to Spring Boot’s SpringApplication class by calling run. SpringApplication bootstraps our application, starting Spring, which, in turn, starts the auto-configured Tomcat web server. We need to pass MyApplication.class as an argument to the run method to tell SpringApplication which is the primary Spring component. The args array is also passed through to expose any command-line arguments.

Running the Example

Maven

At this point, your application should work. Since you used the spring-boot-starter-parent POM, you have a useful run goal that you can use to start the application. Type mvn spring-boot:run from the root project directory to start the application. You should see output similar to the following:

$ mvn spring-boot:run

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::  (v3.4.1)
....... . . .
....... . . . (log output here)
....... . . .
........ Started MyApplication in 0.906 seconds (process running for 6.514)

If you open a web browser to localhost:8080, you should see the following output:

Hello World!

To gracefully exit the application, press ctrl-c.

Gradle

At this point, your application should work. Since you used the org.springframework.boot Gradle plugin, you have a useful bootRun goal that you can use to start the application. Type gradle bootRun from the root project directory to start the application. You should see output similar to the following:

$ gradle bootRun

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::  (v3.4.1)
....... . . .
....... . . . (log output here)
....... . . .
........ Started MyApplication in 0.906 seconds (process running for 6.514)

If you open a web browser to localhost:8080, you should see the following output:

Hello World!

To gracefully exit the application, press ctrl-c.

Creating an Executable Jar

We finish our example by creating a completely self-contained executable jar file that we could run in production. Executable jars (sometimes called “uber jars” or “fat jars”) are archives containing your compiled classes along with all of the jar dependencies that your code needs to run.

Executable jars and Java

Java does not provide a standard way to load nested jar files (jar files that are themselves contained within a jar). This can be problematic if you are looking to distribute a self-contained application.

To solve this problem, many developers use “uber” jars. An uber jar packages all the classes from all the application’s dependencies into a single archive. The problem with this approach is that it becomes hard to see which libraries are in your application. It can also be problematic if the same filename is used (but with different content) in multiple jars.

Spring Boot takes a different approach and lets you actually nest jars directly.

Maven

To create an executable jar, we need to add the spring-boot-maven-plugin to our pom.xml. To do so, insert the following lines just below the dependencies section:

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

The spring-boot-starter-parent POM includes <executions> configuration to bind the repackage goal. If you do not use the parent POM, you need to declare this configuration yourself. See the plugin documentation for details.

Save your pom.xml and run mvn package from the command line, as follows:

$ mvn package

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building myproject 0.0.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] .... ..
[INFO] --- maven-jar-plugin:2.4:jar (default-jar) @ myproject ---
[INFO] Building jar: /Users/developer/example/spring-boot-example/target/myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
[INFO]
[INFO] --- spring-boot-maven-plugin:3.4.1:repackage (default) @ myproject ---
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you look in the target directory, you should see myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar. The file should be around 18 MB in size. If you want to peek inside, you can use jar tvf, as follows:

$ jar tvf target/myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

You should also see a much smaller file named myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar.original in the target directory. This is the original jar file that Maven created before it was repackaged by Spring Boot.

To run that application, use the java -jar command, as follows:

$ java -jar target/myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::  (v3.4.1)
....... . . .
....... . . . (log output here)
....... . . .
........ Started MyApplication in 0.999 seconds (process running for 1.253)

As before, to exit the application, press ctrl-c.

Gradle

To create an executable jar, we need to run gradle bootJar from the command line, as follows:

$ gradle bootJar

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 639ms
3 actionable tasks: 3 executed

If you look in the build/libs directory, you should see myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar. The file should be around 18 MB in size. If you want to peek inside, you can use jar tvf, as follows:

$ jar tvf build/libs/myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

To run that application, use the java -jar command, as follows:

$ java -jar build/libs/myproject-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/
 :: Spring Boot ::  (v{version-spring-boot})
....... . . .
....... . . . (log output here)
....... . . .
........ Started MyApplication in 0.999 seconds (process running for 1.253)

As before, to exit the application, press ctrl-c.