Spring Boot in Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is an ideal lightweight development environment for Spring Boot application developers and there are several useful VS Code extensions including:

If you run into any issues when using the features below, you can contact us by entering an issue.

Prerequisites

A working Java environment with essential extensions installed is needed, including:

Install the Extension Pack for Java

Install the Spring Boot Extension Pack

For more details, refer to the Getting Started with Java tutorial.

Note: More information about JDK can be found at supported Java versions.

Create the project

The Spring Initializr extension allows you to search for dependencies and generate new Spring Boot projects.

To install, launch VS Code and from the Extensions view (⇧⌘X (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+X)), search for vscode-spring-initializr.

Once you have the extension installed, open the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)) and type Spring Initializr to start generating a Maven or Gradle project and then follow the wizard.

Edit the project

The Spring Initializr extension allows you to add dependencies after generating a new Spring Boot project.

Navigate to your pom.xml file and right-click to select Add starters.... A dropdown will show the dependencies you already have beginning with a √ . You can search for other dependencies you want to add to your project. Or you can click on the existing dependencies to remove them.

Develop the application

The Spring Boot Tools extension includes rich language support for working with Spring Boot application.properties, application.yml, and .java files.

The extension supports quick navigate through source code, smart code completions, quick access to running apps, live application information, and code templates. Similar code completion and validation features are also available for .properties and .yml files. You can learn more in the VS Code Language Server for Spring Boot README.

Below is an example showing live application information.

Run the application

In addition to using F5 to run your application, there's the Spring Boot Dashboard extension, which lets you view and manage all available Spring Boot projects in your workspace as well as quickly start, stop, or debug your project.

Next steps

12/10/2021