Contributing to Spring Boot

Spring Boot is released under the Apache 2.0 license. If you would like to contribute something, or simply want to hack on the code this document should help you get started.

This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code. Please report unacceptable behavior to spring-code-of-conduct@pivotal.io.

We use GitHub issues to track bugs and enhancements. If you have a general usage question please ask on Stack Overflow. The Spring Boot team and the broader community monitor the spring-boot tag.

If you are reporting a bug, please help to speed up problem diagnosis by providing as much information as possible. Ideally, that would include a small sample project that reproduces the problem.

If you think you have found a security vulnerability in Spring Boot please DO NOT disclose it publicly until we’ve had a chance to fix it. Please don’t report security vulnerabilities using GitHub issues, instead head over to https://pivotal.io/security and learn how to disclose them responsibly.

Before we accept a non-trivial patch or pull request we will need you to sign the Contributor License Agreement. Signing the contributor’s agreement does not grant anyone commit rights to the main repository, but it does mean that we can accept your contributions, and you will get an author credit if we do. Active contributors might be asked to join the core team, and given the ability to merge pull requests.

None of these is essential for a pull request, but they will all help. They can also be added after the original pull request but before a merge.

• We use the Spring JavaFormat project to apply code formatting conventions. If you use Eclipse and you follow the ‘Importing into eclipse’ instructions below you should get project specific formatting automatically. You can also install the Spring JavaFormat IntelliJ Plugin or format the code from the Maven build by running ./mvnw io.spring.javaformat:spring-javaformat-maven-plugin:apply.

• The build includes checkstyle rules for many of our code conventions. Run ./mvnw validate if you want to check you changes are compliant.

• Make sure all new .java files to have a simple Javadoc class comment with at least an @author tag identifying you, and preferably at least a paragraph on what the class is for.

• Add the ASF license header comment to all new .java files (copy from existing files in the project)

• Add yourself as an @author to the .java files that you modify substantially (more than cosmetic changes).

• Add some Javadocs.

• A few unit tests would help a lot as well — someone has to do it.

• If no-one else is using your branch, please rebase it against the current master (or other target branch in the main project).

• When writing a commit message please follow these conventions, if you are fixing an existing issue please add Fixes gh-XXXX at the end of the commit message (where XXXX is the issue number).

If you don’t have an IDE preference we would recommend that you use Spring Tools Suite or Eclipse when working with the code. We use the M2Eclipse eclipse plugin for maven support. Other IDEs and tools should also work without issue.

Building from Source

$ ./mvnw clean install

$ ./mvnw clean install -DskipTests -Pfast

$ ./mvnw -Pfull clean install

$ ./mvnw -f spring-boot-project -Pfull clean install

Importing into Eclipse

Importing into Other IDEs

The sample applications are used as integration tests during the build (when you ./mvnw install). Due to the fact that they make use of the spring-boot-maven-plugin they cannot be called directly, and so instead are launched via the maven-invoker-plugin. If you encounter build failures running the integration tests, check the build.log file in the appropriate sample directory.

Some files in the git repository may exceed the Windows maximum file path (260 characters), depending on where you clone the repository. If you get Filename too long errors, set the core.longPaths=true git option: