Spring Boot Development in IntelliJ IDEA

Spring's magic — dependency injection, auto-configuration, annotation processing — can feel opaque. IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate makes it visible, showing you what's wired where and catching configuration mistakes before you run.

Start from the initializr

IntelliJ has Spring Initializr built in. New Project → Spring Boot lets you pick dependencies without leaving the IDE.

File → New → Project → Spring Boot
- Choose build tool (Maven / Gradle)
- Select Java version and dependencies
- Generates a runnable skeleton

Navigate the bean graph

The gutter icons next to @Component and @Autowired are clickable — jump straight from an injection point to the bean that satisfies it.

@Service
public class OrderService {
 
    // gutter icon links to the concrete PaymentGateway bean
    private final PaymentGateway gateway;
 
    public OrderService(PaymentGateway gateway) {
        this.gateway = gateway;
    }
}

Configuration with autocomplete

In application.properties or YAML, IntelliJ autocompletes property keys, validates values, and links them to the backing configuration class.

server.port=8080
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost/app
# Ctrl/Cmd + click a key to jump to its @ConfigurationProperties field

Run and inspect endpoints

The Endpoints tool window lists every mapped route, and you can call them directly from the built-in HTTP client with a .http scratch file.

Takeaways

• The built-in Initializr scaffolds projects without a browser trip.
• Gutter icons turn Spring's invisible wiring into clickable navigation.
• Property autocomplete and the Endpoints window catch config errors early.

Ultimate is required for the deep Spring support — the Community edition handles the code but not the framework-aware tooling.