OfficeFloor Tutorials
The tutorials show how to add OfficeFloor capabilities to an existing Spring Boot application. Spring's dependency injection, security, persistence, and all other Spring configuration remain intact at every stage. OfficeFloor enriches, not replaces.
OfficeFloor extends dependency injection with two further kinds of injection:
- Function injection composes plain Java methods into a request-handling pipeline declared entirely in a YAML file. The YAML is the specification: readable without opening any Java file, which is especially valuable when working with AI coding tools.
- Thread injection assigns dedicated thread pools to steps based solely on their dependencies. Socket threads never block on database calls.
The tutorials are structured as follows:
- Spring Boot adds OfficeFloor REST YAML composition to your existing Spring Boot application. No migration required.
- Spring WebFlux shows how to reuse existing Spring WebFlux components within a Spring MVC application, taking advantage of Virtual Threads as they render Spring WebFlux increasingly unnecessary.
- Polyglot covers writing procedure logic in Kotlin, Scala, JavaScript, or other JVM languages alongside Java procedures.
REST endpoints are declared as YAML configuration files throughout these tutorials. This allows teams to work concurrently on separate endpoint files and gives AI tooling the context it needs to generate and modify endpoint code accurately.
All tutorials are part of the OfficeFloor continuous builds and their source can be found here.
Spring Boot
For developers already using Spring Boot, this is the starting point. The OfficeFloor REST Spring Boot Starter adds REST YAML composition to your existing Spring Boot application without requiring any code migration. Your Spring beans, security, persistence, and all other Spring configuration remain unchanged. OfficeFloor simply takes over the declaration of REST endpoints via YAML files.
| Tutorial | Description | Covered |
|---|---|---|
| Spring REST | Declare REST endpoints as YAML configuration files within a Spring Boot application. Spring beans are injected into service methods automatically. | OfficeFloor REST Spring Boot Starter REST YAML composition Function injection basics |
| Function Injection | Compose a multi-step request pipeline via YAML. Conditional branching with @Flow, sequential continuation with return values, and typed data passing between steps. | @Flow @Parameter Pipeline composition |
| Exception Handling | Handle exceptions thrown from REST service methods and map them to HTTP responses. | @ExceptionHandler REST error handling |
| Validation | Validate request payloads and path parameters using Bean Validation. | @Valid ConstraintViolationException |
| Spring Security | Secure REST endpoints using Spring Security with OfficeFloor REST composition. | Spring Security HTTP authorisation |
| CORS | Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing for REST endpoints. | CORS @CrossOrigin |
| OpenAPI / Swagger | Generate OpenAPI documentation from REST YAML endpoint declarations. | OpenAPI Swagger UI |
| Thymeleaf | Render Thymeleaf server-side templates from OfficeFloor REST YAML composition. | Thymeleaf Server-side rendering |
| Servlet Interop | Inject HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse directly into REST service methods. | HttpServletRequest HttpServletResponse |
| Qualifier | Disambiguate multiple Spring beans of the same type using @Qualifier in service methods. | @Qualifier Bean disambiguation |
| Spring Data JPA | Integrate Spring Data JPA repositories with transaction governance in REST YAML composition. | Spring Data JPA @Transactional governance |
| Thread Injection | Assign dedicated thread pools to steps based on their dependencies. Socket threads are freed immediately; blocking database calls run on a separate team. | Teams Thread injection officefloor/teams/ |
| Actuator | Spring Boot Actuator health, info, and metrics endpoints continue to work alongside OfficeFloor REST YAML endpoints with no additional configuration. | spring-boot-starter-actuator /actuator/health |
Spring WebFlux
Virtual Threads in modern JVMs remove the scalability advantage that Spring WebFlux was built to address. Rather than discarding existing reactive components, this tutorial shows how to host them inside a Spring MVC application so you retain the investment while gaining the simplicity of synchronous programming with Virtual Threads.
| Tutorial | Description | Covered |
|---|---|---|
| Spring WebFlux in Spring MVC | Reuse existing Spring WebFlux @Controller components within a Spring MVC application. Virtual Threads deliver the same non-blocking throughput without a reactive programming model. | Spring WebFlux Virtual Threads Spring MVC interop |
Variables
Variables allow state to be passed downstream through a procedure flow without coupling callers to callees. This is useful for threading contextual data through a multi-step pipeline declared in YAML.
| Tutorial | Description | Covered |
|---|---|---|
| Variables | Pass state downstream through a procedure flow without coupling callers to callees. | Out<T> , @Val |
Polyglot
OfficeFloor procedures can be written in any JVM language. Mix Kotlin, Scala, or JavaScript logic into the same REST YAML endpoint graph as Java procedures.
| Tutorial | Description | Covered |
|---|---|---|
| Kotlin | Implement REST procedure logic in Kotlin alongside Java procedures. | Polyglot Kotlin |
| Scala | Implement REST procedure logic in Scala alongside Java procedures. | Polyglot Scala |
| JavaScript | Implement REST procedure logic in JavaScript via GraalVM. | Polyglot JavaScript GraalVM |
| Cats Effect | Integrate Cats Effect functional IO into OfficeFloor REST composition. | Cats Effect |
| ZIO | Integrate ZIO functional effects into OfficeFloor REST composition. | ZIO |
Migration
If you are interested in a deeper integration, such as hosting Spring beans directly in the OfficeFloor runtime, running without Spring, or deploying to cloud platforms, the Migration Guide covers the full journey.