Spring Boot: create a Project

Spring Boot

Spring-Boot

project

maven

Spring Boot

Author

albertprofe

Published

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Modified

Sunday, August 10, 2025

📘 Create a Spring Boot Project

Go to start.spring.io to create a new project with desired settings (Maven, Java, Spring Boot version, etc.).
Add required dependencies such as Spring Web.
Download the generated ZIP file and import it into IntelliJ IDEA.
Create web and REST controllers by creating new Java classes and defining the desired endpoint methods.
Run the application and test the web and REST controllers.
Commit and push the code to GitHub.com (using the built-in Git support in IntelliJ IDEA).

1 Create Maven Project: step-by-step

Here are the steps to create a Spring Boot Maven project, generate it, download it, import it into IntelliJ IDEA, create a web and REST controller (@Controller and @RestController), execute it, and then commit and push it to GitHub.com:

1.1 Open a web browser

And go to the Spring Initializer website at:

Spring Initializer IO: start.spring.io

1.2 Select the desired project settings

Such as project type (Maven), language (Java), and Spring Boot version.

1.3 Add dependencies

Select the required dependencies, such as:

Spring Web,
Spring Data JPA,
Spring Boot DevTools,
Lombok
Thyemleaf
H2 Database

1.4 Generate

Generate the project by clicking the Generate button.

URL where you may create a Spring Boot project.
Define Maven as Dependencies Mananger and Java.
Name your project.
Choose your version and packaging: jar.
Add dependencies
Generate & Download

1.5 Download

Download the generated project as a ZIP file.

1.6 Unzip

Unzip the file to a desired location and import the project into IntelliJ IDEA.

1.7 Build

Build the project and check folder tree structure and POM.xml

Execute/refresh Maven if necessary
POM.xml

<dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
        </groupId>springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
            <optional>true</optional>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
            <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
            <optional>true</optional>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

1.8 Create a web controller

Create a web controller by right-clicking on the project and selecting "New" -> "Java Class".

- In the newly created class, add the following code to define a simple **web controller**:

package com.example.myFirstSpring;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;

@Controller
public class HelloWebController {

    @RequestMapping("/helloweb")
    public String helloHandler(){

        return "hello.html";
    }
}

Web Controller

1.9 Create a HTML web page

Create a HTML web page by right-clicking on the project and selecting "New" -> "HTML page".

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Java Spring WebApp cifo</title>
</head>
<body>
hey .... this is amazing ... a- ma - zing
</body>
</html>

HTML page: hello.html

1.10 Create a REST controller

Create a REST controller by following the same steps as in step 8 and adding the following code to define a simple REST endpoint:

package com.example.myFirstSpring;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
public class HelloRestController {

    @GetMapping("/hellorest")
    public String helloWorld(){

        return "Hello Worlds and class!!!!";
    }
}

Rest Controller

1.11 Run

Run the application by clicking the “Run” button or by using the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + Shift + F10”.

1.12 Check the endpoints

/home/devops/MyProjects/JavaSEProjects/CifoJava2023/myFirstSpring Once the application is running, you can test it by accessing:

the web controller in a web browser by going to
- http://localhost:8080/helloweb
and the REST controller by going to
- http://localhost:8080/hellorest

1.13 Commit & Push

Finally, you can commit and push the code to Git by using the built-in Git support in IntelliJ IDEA. Simply right-click on the project and select “Git” -> “Commit Directory” and then “Git” -> “Push”.

Be careful! It is mono-repo, we are pushhing two projects

A monorepo is a version control strategy where a single repository contains all of the source code, resources, and assets required to build and run an application or a suite of applications. Monorepos are used to manage projects that have multiple, interdependent components that are frequently developed and deployed together.

We have done two commits, just to test the process

It is a mono-repo, that is, this project shrare repository with other projects

The folder tree structure is right and there are just the desired files