Spring Boot
@SpringBootTest loads your entire application context — great for integration tests, slow for unit-level controller tests. @WebMvcTest loads only the web layer. Choosing wrong costs you seconds per test and misleading failure signals. Spring Boot gives you two primary annotations for testing the web layer: @SpringBootTest and @WebMvcTest. Both spin
Java
@SpringBootTest loads the full application context, making it the go-to annotation for integration tests in Spring Boot. Understanding its webEnvironment options and context slicing alternatives can dramatically speed up your test suite while keeping coverage high. Key Takeaways @SpringBootTest loads the full context by default. This gives you real
Testing
Spock integrates with Spring Boot via the spock-spring module, which brings @SpringBootTest, @SpringBean, and @SpringSpy into Spock specs. You get the full Spring context with Spock's readable BDD syntax, mock injection via @SpringBean, and real bean overrides via @SpringSpy. This guide covers setup, common patterns, and how
Java
@DataJpaTest loads only the JPA slice of the Spring context — entities, repositories, and the embedded database — making repository tests fast and isolated. This guide covers everything from basic CRUD tests to custom queries, pagination, and testing against a real database. Key Takeaways @DataJpaTest uses H2 in-memory by default. Each
API Testing
Spring Boot's testing support is excellent on its own, but pairing it with REST Assured gives you expressive, readable integration tests that cover the full HTTP layer — controllers, serialization, validation, error handling, and everything in between. This guide shows you how to wire the two together and build
Spring Boot
Security is the layer where bugs have the worst consequences — an unprotected endpoint or a misconfigured role check is not a UI glitch, it is a data breach.
Spring Boot
@DataJpaTest loads only the JPA layer — no controllers, no services, no security. Pair it with TestEntityManager for precise fixture control, and Testcontainers PostgreSQL when H2 is not enough. This post covers all the patterns you need for a solid repository test suite. The repository layer is where your application talks
Spring Boot
Reactive programming introduces a fundamentally different execution model — asynchronous, non-blocking, event-driven — and testing it requires a different mindset. You can't just call a method and check the return value; you need to subscribe to a stream, assert on emitted items, verify completion signals, and handle errors
Spring Boot
An API gateway is the front door to your microservices architecture. Every request passes through it — authentication checks, rate limiting, request transformation, circuit breaking, routing. If the gateway misbehaves, every service behind it is affected. Yet gateways are frequently undertested because developers assume the framework handles everything correctly, and testing
Spring Boot
Batch jobs process the most sensitive and voluminous data in many enterprise applications — billing runs, ETL pipelines, report generation, data migrations.
Testing
Spring Boot and REST Assured are a natural combination. Spring Boot makes building REST APIs fast; REST Assured makes testing them readable.