Home / Enterprise / Spring Boot MVC Configuration
Enterprise Beginner

Spring Boot MVC Configuration

Replace the removed WebMvcConfigurerAdapter with WebMvcConfigurer and retain Spring Boot's MVC auto-configuration.

Spring Framework Spring Boot Spring Web MVC Migration
Code Comparison
✕ Spring Boot 1.x 
@EnableWebMvc
@Configuration
public class WebConfig extends WebMvcConfigurerAdapter {
    @Override
    public void addViewControllers(
            ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
        registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("home");
    }
}
✓ Spring Boot 4.x 
@Configuration
public class WebConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
    @Override
    public void addViewControllers(
            ViewControllerRegistry registry) {
        registry.addViewController("/").setViewName("home");
    }
}
See a problem with this code? Let us know.
Why the modern way wins
🧹

No removed adapter

WebMvcConfigurer supplies default methods, so there is no adapter superclass to extend.

⚙️

Keeps Boot defaults

Without @EnableWebMvc, Spring Boot continues to configure MVC infrastructure automatically.

🎯

Override only what matters

Implement the interface and customize just the MVC hook required by the application.

Old Approach
WebMvcConfigurerAdapter with @EnableWebMvc
Modern Approach
WebMvcConfigurer with Spring Boot Auto-Configuration
Since JDK
17
Difficulty
Beginner
JDK Support
Spring Boot MVC Configuration
Available

Available in Spring Boot 4.0 with Spring Framework 7.0 (requires Java 17+)

How it works

Spring Boot 1.x applications commonly extended WebMvcConfigurerAdapter because Java interfaces could not provide default methods. Modern Spring Framework versions provide default implementations directly on WebMvcConfigurer, so implement the interface and override only the methods you need. In a Spring Boot application, do not add @EnableWebMvc unless you intentionally want to take full control of MVC configuration: it disables Boot's MVC auto-configuration, including its usual converters, static-resource handling, and other defaults.

Related Documentation
Spring Framework — MVC Java Configuration ↗ Spring Boot — MVC Auto-configuration ↗
Proof
View proof source ↗
Related patterns
Enterprise Intermediate

Spring Framework 7 API Versioning

Spring Boot 2/3
// Version 1 controller
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/v1/products")
public class ProductControllerV1 {
    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public ProductDtoV1 getProduct(
            @PathVariable Long id) {
        return service.getV1(id);
    }
}

// Version 2 — duplicated structure
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/v2/products")
public class ProductControllerV2 {
    @GetMapping("/{id}")
    public ProductDtoV2 getProduct(
            @PathVariable Long id) {
        return service.getV2(id);
    }
}
Spring Framework 7+
// Configure versioning once
@Configuration
public class WebConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
    @Override
    public void configureApiVersioning(
            ApiVersionConfigurer config) {
        config.useRequestHeader("X-API-Version");
    }
}

// Single controller, version per method
@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/products")
public class ProductController {
    @GetMapping(value = "/{id}", version = "1")
    public ProductDtoV1 getV1(@PathVariable Long id) {
        return service.getV1(id);
    }

    @GetMapping(value = "/{id}", version = "2")
    public ProductDtoV2 getV2(@PathVariable Long id) {
        return service.getV2(id);
    }
}
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 17+ →
Enterprise Intermediate

Spring XML Bean Config vs Annotation-Driven

Spring (XML)
<!-- applicationContext.xml -->
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
        http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">

    <bean id="userRepository"
          class="com.example.UserRepository">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource"/>
    </bean>

    <bean id="userService"
          class="com.example.UserService">
        <property name="repository" ref="userRepository"/>
    </bean>

</beans>
Spring Boot 3+
@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }
}

@Repository
public class UserRepository {
    private final JdbcTemplate jdbc;

    public UserRepository(JdbcTemplate jdbc) {
        this.jdbc = jdbc;
    }
}

@Service
public class UserService {
    private final UserRepository repository;

    public UserService(UserRepository repository) {
        this.repository = repository;
    }
}
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 17+ →
Enterprise Intermediate

Spring Null Safety with JSpecify

Spring 5/6
import org.springframework.lang.NonNull;
import org.springframework.lang.Nullable;

public class UserService {

    @Nullable
    public User findById(@NonNull String id) {
        return repository.findById(id).orElse(null);
    }

    @NonNull
    public List<User> findAll() {
        return repository.findAll();
    }

    @NonNull
    public User save(@NonNull User user) {
        return repository.save(user);
    }
}
Spring 7
import org.jspecify.annotations.NullMarked;
import org.jspecify.annotations.Nullable;

@NullMarked
public class UserService {

    public @Nullable User findById(String id) {
        return repository.findById(id).orElse(null);
    }

    public List<User> findAll() {
        return repository.findAll();
    }

    public User save(User user) {
        return repository.save(user);
    }
}
Hover to see modern ➜
JDK 17+ →