Condition Annotations

You almost always want to include one or more @Conditional annotations on your auto-configuration class. The @ConditionalOnMissingBean annotation is one common example that is used to allow developers to override auto-configuration if they are not happy with your defaults.

Spring Boot includes a number of @Conditional annotations that you can reuse in your own code by annotating @Configuration classes or individual @Bean methods. These annotations include:

Class Conditions

The @ConditionalOnClass and @ConditionalOnMissingClass annotations let @Configuration classes be included based on the presence or absence of specific classes. Due to the fact that annotation metadata is parsed by using ASM, you can use the value attribute to refer to the real class, even though that class might not actually appear on the running application classpath. You can also use the name attribute if you prefer to specify the class name by using a String value.

This mechanism does not apply the same way to @Bean methods where typically the return type is the target of the condition: before the condition on the method applies, the JVM will have loaded the class and potentially processed method references which will fail if the class is not present.

To handle this scenario, a separate @Configuration class can be used to isolate the condition, as shown in the following example:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnClass;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnMissingBean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;

@AutoConfiguration
// Some conditions ...
public class MyAutoConfiguration {

	// Auto-configured beans ...

	@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
	@ConditionalOnClass(SomeService.class)
	public static class SomeServiceConfiguration {

		@Bean
		@ConditionalOnMissingBean
		public SomeService someService() {
			return new SomeService();
		}

	}

}
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnClass
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnMissingBean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
// Some conditions ...
class MyAutoConfiguration {

	// Auto-configured beans ...
	@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
	@ConditionalOnClass(SomeService::class)
	class SomeServiceConfiguration {

		@Bean
		@ConditionalOnMissingBean
		fun someService(): SomeService {
			return SomeService()
		}

	}

}
If you use @ConditionalOnClass or @ConditionalOnMissingClass as a part of a meta-annotation to compose your own composed annotations, you must use name as referring to the class in such a case is not handled.

Bean Conditions

The @ConditionalOnBean and @ConditionalOnMissingBean annotations let a bean be included based on the presence or absence of specific beans. You can use the value attribute to specify beans by type or name to specify beans by name. The search attribute lets you limit the ApplicationContext hierarchy that should be considered when searching for beans.

When placed on a @Bean method, the target type defaults to the return type of the method, as shown in the following example:

  • Java

  • Kotlin

import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnMissingBean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;

@AutoConfiguration
public class MyAutoConfiguration {

	@Bean
	@ConditionalOnMissingBean
	public SomeService someService() {
		return new SomeService();
	}

}
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.condition.ConditionalOnMissingBean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration

@Configuration(proxyBeanMethods = false)
class MyAutoConfiguration {

	@Bean
	@ConditionalOnMissingBean
	fun someService(): SomeService {
		return SomeService()
	}

}

In the preceding example, the someService bean is going to be created if no bean of type SomeService is already contained in the ApplicationContext.

You need to be very careful about the order in which bean definitions are added, as these conditions are evaluated based on what has been processed so far. For this reason, we recommend using only @ConditionalOnBean and @ConditionalOnMissingBean annotations on auto-configuration classes (since these are guaranteed to load after any user-defined bean definitions have been added).
@ConditionalOnBean and @ConditionalOnMissingBean do not prevent @Configuration classes from being created. The only difference between using these conditions at the class level and marking each contained @Bean method with the annotation is that the former prevents registration of the @Configuration class as a bean if the condition does not match.
When declaring a @Bean method, provide as much type information as possible in the method’s return type. For example, if your bean’s concrete class implements an interface the bean method’s return type should be the concrete class and not the interface. Providing as much type information as possible in @Bean methods is particularly important when using bean conditions as their evaluation can only rely upon to type information that is available in the method signature.

Property Conditions

The @ConditionalOnProperty annotation lets configuration be included based on a Spring Environment property. Use the prefix and name attributes to specify the property that should be checked. By default, any property that exists and is not equal to false is matched. You can also create more advanced checks by using the havingValue and matchIfMissing attributes.

Resource Conditions

The @ConditionalOnResource annotation lets configuration be included only when a specific resource is present. Resources can be specified by using the usual Spring conventions, as shown in the following example: file:/home/user/test.dat.

Web Application Conditions

The @ConditionalOnWebApplication and @ConditionalOnNotWebApplication annotations let configuration be included depending on whether the application is a “web application”. A servlet-based web application is any application that uses a Spring WebApplicationContext, defines a session scope, or has a ConfigurableWebEnvironment. A reactive web application is any application that uses a ReactiveWebApplicationContext, or has a ConfigurableReactiveWebEnvironment.

The @ConditionalOnWarDeployment annotation lets configuration be included depending on whether the application is a traditional WAR application that is deployed to a container. This condition will not match for applications that are run with an embedded server.

SpEL Expression Conditions

The @ConditionalOnExpression annotation lets configuration be included based on the result of a SpEL expression.

Referencing a bean in the expression will cause that bean to be initialized very early in context refresh processing. As a result, the bean won’t be eligible for post-processing (such as configuration properties binding) and its state may be incomplete.