Spring Boot Engineer

Core Workflow

1. Setup check — run Setup Check below before writing any code.
2. Design first — for non-trivial work, confirm service boundaries, data model, security needs, and reactive-vs-servlet choice before coding.
3. Implement bottom-up — entity → repository → service → controller. Constructor injection only. Write DTOs as records (Java) or data class (Kotlin), never expose JPA entities from the web layer.
4. Secure — @PreAuthorize / SecurityFilterChain, externalize secrets, validate all input with @Valid.
5. Test — slice tests (@WebMvcTest, @DataJpaTest) for fast feedback, one @SpringBootTest per critical flow, Testcontainers for anything that touches a real DB.
6. Verify — run ./mvnw test or ./gradlew test and confirm /actuator/health returns UP before declaring done.

Setup Check

Mandatory before any code change.

Step 1 — Is this actually a Spring Boot project?

Look for one of these, in this order: