Spring Boot Skills Guide

Spring Boot Skills Guide

Quick reference to 13 Spring Boot skills for production-ready applications. See individual skill files for complete details.

Skills Overview

Core Spring Boot

spring-boot-dependency-injection

File: skills/spring-boot-dependency-injection/SKILL.md

Master constructor-first DI for testable, framework-agnostic services.

When to use:

• Implementing @Service, @Component, @Repository
• Replacing field injection during modernization
• Auditing bean definitions

Key pattern:

@Service
@RequiredArgsConstructor
public class UserService {
    private final UserRepository userRepository;
    
    public User create(CreateUserRequest req) {
        return userRepository.save(User.of(req));
    }
}

spring-boot-actuator

File: skills/spring-boot-actuator/SKILL.md

Production monitoring: health checks, metrics, custom endpoints.

When to use:

• Adding observability to Spring Boot apps
• Implementing custom health indicators
• Exposing metrics to Prometheus/Grafana

spring-boot-cache

File: skills/spring-boot-cache/SKILL.md

Caching patterns: @Cacheable, eviction, distributed caches.

When to use:

• Reducing database queries
• Implementing cache eviction strategies
• Using Redis for distributed caching

Data & Persistence

spring-data-jpa

File: skills/spring-data-jpa/SKILL.md

Spring Data JPA: query methods, custom repositories, performance.

When to use:

• Building CRUD operations
• Creating custom queries
• Optimizing N+1 queries

spring-data-neo4j

File: skills/spring-data-neo4j/SKILL.md

Neo4j integration: graph modeling, Cypher queries, relationships.

When to use:

• Working with graph databases
• Modeling relationships and patterns
• Complex relationship traversals

Architecture & Patterns

spring-boot-crud-patterns

File: skills/spring-boot-crud-patterns/SKILL.md

REST CRUD with DDD, feature-based architecture, Lombok, Spring Data.

When to use:

• Generating CRUD REST APIs
• Organizing code by features not layers
• Using DTOs and mappers

spring-boot-event-driven-patterns

File: skills/spring-boot-event-driven-patterns/SKILL.md

Event-driven architecture: domain events, Kafka, Spring Cloud Stream.

When to use:

• Decoupling services with async events
• Implementing event sourcing patterns
• Kafka message handling

spring-boot-saga-pattern

File: skills/spring-boot-saga-pattern/SKILL.md

Distributed transactions: choreography, orchestration, compensations.

When to use:

• Coordinating multiple services
• Implementing compensating transactions
• Managing distributed consistency

spring-boot-rest-api-standards

File: skills/spring-boot-rest-api-standards/SKILL.md

REST API design: HTTP semantics, error handling, pagination, headers.

When to use:

• Designing REST endpoints
• Implementing error responses
• Adding pagination and filtering

Resilience & Security

spring-boot-resilience4j

File: skills/spring-boot-resilience4j/SKILL.md

Fault tolerance: circuit breaker, retry, rate limiting, bulkhead.

When to use:

• Protecting against cascading failures
• Implementing retry policies
• Rate limiting API endpoints

spring-boot-security-jwt

File: skills/spring-boot-security-jwt/SKILL.md

JWT authentication, OAuth2/OIDC, RBAC, permission-based access.

When to use:

• Implementing JWT authentication
• OAuth2/OIDC integration
• Role-based access control

Testing

spring-boot-test-patterns

File: skills/spring-boot-test-patterns/SKILL.md

Integration testing: Testcontainers, Spring slice tests, databases.

When to use:

• Writing integration tests
• Testing with real databases
• Spring context tests

Documentation

spring-boot-openapi-documentation

File: skills/spring-boot-openapi-documentation/SKILL.md

OpenAPI/Swagger documentation: API docs, schema generation, SpringDoc.

When to use:

• Documenting REST APIs
• Generating Swagger UI
• Creating OpenAPI schemas

Common Workflows

Building a Complete API

1. spring-boot-crud-patterns          → Generate REST CRUD operations
2. spring-boot-rest-api-standards     → Design proper responses
3. spring-boot-security-jwt           → Add authentication
4. spring-data-jpa                    → Optimize queries
5. spring-boot-actuator               → Add monitoring
6. spring-boot-test-patterns          → Write integration tests

Adding Async Patterns

1. spring-boot-event-driven-patterns  → Design event architecture
2. spring-boot-saga-pattern           → Coordinate services
3. spring-boot-resilience4j           → Handle failures
4. spring-boot-cache                  → Cache results

Production Ready

1. spring-boot-security-jwt           → Secure all endpoints
2. spring-boot-actuator               → Add health/metrics
3. spring-boot-resilience4j           → Add fault tolerance
4. spring-boot-test-patterns          → Integration tests
5. spring-boot-openapi-documentation → API documentation

Stack & Versions

• Spring Boot: 3.5.x+
• Java: 17+ (records, sealed classes)
• Spring Data: JPA, Neo4j
• Testing: Testcontainers 1.19+, JUnit 5, Mockito
• Resilience: Resilience4j
• Documentation: OpenAPI 3.0, SpringDoc

Note: For complete patterns and examples, see individual skill files in skills/