Spring Sweets: Create New Projects From a URL

To quickly start with a Spring project we can use the website start.spring.io. Via a user interface we can set project properties and at the end we have a project archive (Zip or gzipped Tar file) or build file (pom.xml or build.gradle). We can also directory access an URL to create the output files and we set the properties via request parameters. This way you can share a link with someone and if they click on it they will download the generated project archive or build files.

We can choose different base URLs depending on the type of project archive we want. To get a Zip file we use http://start.spring.io/starter.zip and to get a gzipped Tar file we use http://start.spring.io/starter.tgz. To create a Gradle build file with all the configuration for a project we use http://start.spring.io/build.gradle. For a Maven POM XML file we use the URL http://start.spring.io/pom.xml.

All output format support the same request parameters to set the project properties:

Request parameter	Description	Sample
dependencies	Add Spring Boot Starters and dependencies to your application	web,security
style	Alias for dependencies	actuator,sleuth,eureka&20discovery
type	Used for project archives. Use gradle-project or maven-project	gradle-project
name	Name of project	demo
description	Description for the project	Demo%20project%20for%20Spring%20Boot
groupId	Value for groupId for publishing project	com.example
artifactId	Value for artifactId for publishing project	demo
version	Version of the project	1.0.0.DEVELOPMENT
bootVersion	Version for Spring Boot	1.3.3
packaging	Packaging for project (jar or war)	jar
applicationName	Name of the application	demo
language	Language can be Java, Groovy or Kotlin	Groovy
packageName	Name for package for example code	com.example
javaVersion	Java version for project	1.8
baseDir	Base directory in archive	sample

Let's create a URL for a Groovy project with a Gradle build file where we have a dependency on web, security and actuator:

http://start.spring.io/build.gradle?dependencies=web,security,actuator&name=sample&description=Sample&20Project&version=1.0.0.DEVELOPMENT&bootVersion=1.3.3.RELEASE&javaVersion=1.8&language=groovy&packaging=jar

When we save the Gradle build file we have the following file contents:

buildscript {
 ext {
  springBootVersion = '1.3.3.RELEASE'
 }
 repositories {
  mavenCentral()
 }
 dependencies {
  classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}") 
 }
}

apply plugin: 'groovy'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'spring-boot' 

jar {
 baseName = 'demo'
 version = '1.0.0.DEVELOPMENT'
}
sourceCompatibility = 1.8
targetCompatibility = 1.8

repositories {
 mavenCentral()
}


dependencies {
 compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator')
 compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-security')
 compile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web')
 compile('org.codehaus.groovy:groovy')
 testCompile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test') 
}


eclipse {
 classpath {
   containers.remove('org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER')
   containers 'org.eclipse.jdt.launching.JRE_CONTAINER/org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType/JavaSE-1.8'
 }
}

task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
 gradleVersion = '2.9'
}

Instead of just a build file we want to create a sample project archive file. We use the following URL:

http://start.spring.io/starter.tgz?dependencies=web,security,actuator&name=sample&description=Sample&20Project&version=1.0.0.DEVELOPMENT&bootVersion=1.3.3.RELEASE&javaVersion=1.8&language=groovy&packaging=jar&type=gradle-project&baseDir=sample

Let's open the archive and see the contents. Notice we used the baseDir request parameter so when we unpack we get a new directory.

$ tar xf starter.tgz 
$ tree sample/
sample/
├── build.gradle
├── gradle
│   └── wrapper
│       ├── gradle-wrapper.jar
│       └── gradle-wrapper.properties
├── gradlew
├── gradlew.bat
└── src
    ├── main
    │   ├── groovy
    │   │   └── com
    │   │       └── example
    │   │           └── SampleApplication.groovy
    │   └── resources
    │       ├── application.properties
    │       ├── static
    │       └── templates
    └── test
        └── groovy
            └── com
                └── example
                    └── SampleApplicationTests.groovy

14 directories, 8 files
$

We can also use wget, cUrl or Httpie to download a starter template from start.spring.io using request parameters.

Written with Spring Boot 1.3.3.