Project Planning (Java/Spring Boot)

Workflow for project planning, architecture decisions, and technical design in the Spring ecosystem.

1. Understand Requirements

• What problem are we solving?
• What are the constraints (time, performance, scale)?
• What are the non-functional requirements (Security, Observability)?

2. Technology Choices (Spring Ecosystem)

• Main Framework: Spring Boot
• Build: Maven or Gradle
• Data Access: Spring Data JPA (for SQL) or Spring Data MongoDB (for NoSQL).
• Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, or H2 (for testing/development).
• Communication: WebClient for HTTP calls.
• Security: Spring Security
• Observability: Spring Boot Actuator + Micrometer (for Prometheus/Grafana).
• Testing: JUnit 5, Mockito, Testcontainers.

3. Architecture Design

Core Principles

• KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
• YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It)
• Composition > Inheritance
• Code to the Interface

Layered Architecture Pattern

• Controller (Web Layer): Responsible for exposing REST endpoints (@RestController). Receives DTOs (Data Transfer Objects) and calls the Service.
• Service (Business Layer): Contains business logic (@Service). Orchestrates calls to Repositories and other services.
• Repository (Data Layer): Spring Data interface (@Repository) for database access.
• DTOs: Use DTOs to transfer data between the Controller layer and the client, avoiding exposure of domain entities.
• Entities: Domain classes (e.g., annotated with @Entity from JPA).

Architecture Checklist

• Constructor-based Dependency Injection
• Type-safe configuration via @ConfigurationProperties
• Security (Spring Security) planned from the start
• Observability (Actuator) included
• Exception handling strategy (e.g., @ControllerAdvice)

4. Testing Strategy

• Unit Tests: Test Service classes in isolation (using Mockito for mocks).
• Test Slices (Integration):
  • @WebMvcTest: Tests the Controller layer (mocking the Service).
  • @DataJpaTest: Tests the Repository layer (using in-memory DB or Testcontainers).
• Integration Tests (Full):
  • @SpringBootTest: Loads the full application context.
  • Testcontainers: Use to test real integration with the database.

5. Observability Planning

• Actuator: Include the starter (/health, /metrics, /info).
• Logging: Configure structured logging.
• Tracing: If using microservices, plan for Tracing (e.g., Micrometer Tracing).

6. Security Planning (Spring Security)

• Define authentication strategy (e.g., JWT, OAuth2).
• Define authorization on endpoints (e.g., antMatchers or @PreAuthorize).
• Handle CORS.

7. Decisions

• Avoid Premature Optimization: Write a good program first. Use a profiler to optimize bottlenecks.
• Avoid Over-Engineering: Don't use complex patterns (e.g., CQRS, Event Sourcing) unless required. Start simple with CRUD.