Key Concepts

Project: A "Plain Old Java Project" hosted in GitHub or GitLab. Projects are registered with the CLI so that a simple name can refer to them.

For example, if you register the GitHub URL of a project that uses Spring Data JPA with a name of ‘jpa’, you can create a new project from that one by invoking the command boot new my-jpa-app jpa command. Similarly, you can add JPA functionality to an existing project by invoking the boot add jpa command.

The commands related to projects are project list, project add, and project remove.

Project Catalog: The Project Catalog is a collection of projects that share a common theme.

After registering a catalog with the CLI, the projects are readily available when using the boot new and boot add commands. The catalog is a YAML file with a name of project-catalog.yaml. It contains a list of project repository URLs and an associated name. The catalog is hosted on GitHub or GitLab

The commands related to project catalogs are catalog list, catalog add, and catalog remove

Commands: These are declaratively defined commands that let you add or modify code and configuration files.

You can also run arbitrary executables to perform any arbitrary task that commonly occurs in your development workflow. User-defined commands are integrated into the CLI and appear the same as the built-in commands.

A user-defined command has three parts: the command name, the sub-command name, and the options. The command name and sub-command name are defined by using a directory structure convention.

For example, to create a new user-defined command with a command name of controller and a sub-command name of new, make the following directory structure:

In this directory, you can have one file named command.yaml that defines the command’s description, options, and default values. This directory (and subdirectories) contain action files that define the actions to take on the project.

Action Files: These define the actions that can be taken on a project.

In your CLI, roles provide a way to organize and reuse variables across user-defined commands.

The Spring CLI includes a default, unnamed role that is always present. Also, roles can be associated with specific names to further differentiate their purpose and usage. These roles are stored as YAML files within the .spring/roles directory, which is located alongside the .spring/commands directory.

These roles let you define variables that are accessible in an action file, providing a way to share data between commands.

You can also use roles to supply values for command line options. If a command-line option does not have a specified value and a role variable has been defined with the same name as the command option, the command uses the value of the role variable for that specific command option.

Some common role commands related to projects are role add, role remove, and role set