A Hands-On Course

Building REST APIs with Spring Boot

From your first endpoint to a tested, portfolio-ready Library Management API — one tightly-scoped lesson at a time.

The mission Become job-ready as a Java backend developer. Every lesson builds one feature of a Library Management API (authors & books) you can show and discuss in interviews.

Lessons

  1. Your First Running Endpoint
    SDKMAN + Spring Boot CLI, @SpringBootApplication, @RestController, the embedded server — from empty folder to a live GET /hello.
    Ready
  2. Returning JSON & Modelling a Book
    Return objects and lists; how a @RestController turns them into JSON.
    Soon
  3. Layered Architecture & Dependency Injection
    Extract a service, constructor injection, and why it makes code testable.
    Soon
  4. Full CRUD
    POST/PUT/DELETE, @RequestBody, @PathVariable, status codes & ResponseEntity.
    Soon
  5. Persistence with Spring Data JPA
    @Entity, JpaRepository, an H2 database, derived queries.
    Soon
  6. Relationships: Authors ⇄ Books
    @OneToMany/@ManyToOne and DTOs to avoid leaking entities.
    Soon
  7. Validation & Error Handling
    @Valid, Bean Validation, and global handling with @ControllerAdvice.
    Soon
  8. Testing the API
    @SpringBootTest, MockMvc, slice tests — the interview differentiator.
    Soon
  9. Polish for Your Portfolio
    README, OpenAPI/Swagger docs, project structure, push to GitHub.
    Soon

Reference

Trusted resources