Create Spring Boot Java Project

Docker

Four multi-stage Dockerfiles are provided: JVM and GraalVM native images, each for Maven and Gradle (Groovy or Kotlin DSL). Copy the one you need to the project root and build it with -f. AOT and CRaC images are deferred.

Verified on Boot 4.1.1 (web + actuator + validation), arm64 Docker Desktop: all four build and serve /hello and /actuator/health. JVM images are about 200 MB and build in under a minute (about 2 s startup); native images are about 175 MB, take 2m20-2m55 to build (around 6 GB of builder memory) and start in about 0.09 s. The Gradle builds set the toolchain to the same Java version as the build stage (25).

Choosing

Native requires the native dependency at generation time (-d dependencies=...,native) and the Spring Boot native Maven profile (included by start.spring.io when the dependency is selected).

Properties of the provided Dockerfiles

• Multi-stage: build in a JDK/GraalVM image, run in a small runtime image.

• JVM: the Boot jar is extracted into layers (java -Djarmode=tools -jar app.jar extract --layers --launcher) for better caching, runtime assembled with jlink, final base is distroless nonroot (no shell, no package manager).

• Native: the executable is built with -H:+StaticExecutableWithDynamicLibC and copied into distroless nonroot. The find that picks the executable must skip *.so: GraalVM 25 leaves executable libjava.so/libjvm.so stubs next to it, and copying one of those gives a container that exits with 139 (segfault).

• Run as non-root, expose 8080, JVM flags via JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS (no shell to expand JAVA_OPTS).

• Pinned base image tags (eclipse-temurin:25-jdk-noble, ghcr.io/graalvm/graalvm-community:25, gcr.io/distroless/base-debian12:nonroot); match the Java version of the project and update when it changes. Consider pinning by digest for reproducibility.

• No Docker HEALTHCHECK (distroless has no curl); probe /actuator/health from the orchestrator (liveness/readiness: management.endpoint.health.probes.enabled=true).

• Keep a .dockerignore (target/, build/, .git, .env, IDE files) so secrets and build output stay out of the context.

Build and run

docker build -t my-spring-app .
docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 \
  -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_URL=jdbc:postgresql://host.docker.internal:5432/mydb \
  -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_USERNAME=user -e SPRING_DATASOURCE_PASSWORD=password \
  my-spring-app

Alternative without a Dockerfile: ./mvnw spring-boot:build-image or ./gradlew bootBuildImage (Cloud Native Buildpacks; add -Pnative for native with Maven, Gradle needs the org.graalvm.buildtools.native plugin). Verified on Boot 4.1.1 (web + actuator + validation + data-jpa, Java 25): Maven native build-image about 2m40, 282 MB image; Gradle bootBuildImage 2-4 min, image starts in 0.1-0.2 s and /actuator/health returns UP with native-build-tools 1.1.7 and 1.1.8. A native image that crashes at startup with Invalid logger interface org.hibernate.validator.internal.util.logging.Log (implementation not found) was seen once with Gradle but could not be reproduced; it matches graalvm/native-build-tools#1017 (Gradle collectReachabilityMetadata overwrote the hibernate-validator metadata with the jboss-logging one, leaving a ~2 KB file). If it happens, check unzip -l build/libs/*.jar | grep hibernate-validator.*reachability-metadata.json (healthy is about 150 KB), upgrade org.graalvm.buildtools.native to the latest release and rebuild with --no-build-cache; always run the image and hit /actuator/health.

Development

Use spring-boot-docker-compose with compose.yaml for dependencies (see database.md); do not containerize the application itself during development.