Starters are dependency descriptors that bundle commonly used libraries. Add one starter dependency and get a working, auto-configured setup.

Starter Includes
spring-boot-starter-web Spring MVC, Tomcat, Jackson
spring-boot-starter-data-jpa Hibernate, Spring Data JPA
spring-boot-starter-security Spring Security
spring-boot-starter-test JUnit 5, Mockito, AssertJ
spring-boot-starter-actuator Production monitoring
spring-boot-starter-validation Bean Validation (Hibernate Validator)
spring-boot-starter-data-redis Lettuce, Spring Data Redis

Maven Example 

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
    <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>

Gradle Example 

  dependencies {
    implementation("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
    implementation("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa")
    runtimeOnly("org.postgresql:postgresql")
}

Parent POM / BOM

Spring Boot manages dependency versions via BOM:

  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>3.2.0</version>
</parent>

Or import BOM without parent:

  <dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>3.2.0</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

Creating a Custom Starter

Structure:

  my-spring-boot-starter/
├── src/main/java/.../autoconfigure/
│   ├── MyAutoConfiguration.java
│   └── MyProperties.java
└── src/main/resources/META-INF/spring/
    └── org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfiguration.imports

Naming convention: {feature}-spring-boot-starter (official) or my-{feature}-starter (custom).

Best Practices

  • Use starters instead of declaring individual transitive dependencies
  • Do not specify versions for dependencies managed by Spring Boot BOM
  • Exclude unwanted transitive dependencies when needed
  • Create custom starters for shared internal libraries across projects