SivaLabs

Harness Engineering for Java and Spring Boot Applications

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 06:00:00 +0530

I want to accelerate development using AI coding agents, but I don’t want to give up on code quality to get there. Generating code faster is useful only if I can keep the application understandable, maintainable, and correct as it grows.

An agent can implement a feature, generate tests, and refactor several classes in a few minutes. Reviewing all those changes carefully still takes time. If every review requires me to point out formatting issues, explain package boundaries again, and ask for missing authorization tests, I have moved the bottleneck rather than removed it.

Spring Boot Tips: Easiest Way To Provide Environment Variables

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 06:00:00 +0530

Spring Boot has excellent support for externalized configuration. You can supply configuration through properties files, YAML files, environment variables, command-line arguments, and several other sources.

Spring Boot Configuration Management Best Practices

Explore Spring Boot Configuration Management Best Practices to learn more.

That flexibility is useful, but local development still presents a small annoyance: where should you define environment variables?

You could export them from .bashrc or .zshrc, but then they affect every terminal session. You could configure them in your IDE, but each run configuration and each developer may need the same setup.

For local development, I usually prefer a small file in the project directory.

Spring AI : Advisors API

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0530

Once an AI feature moves beyond a demo, the model call is rarely the whole story.

You need to log requests, restore conversation history, retrieve relevant documents, reject unsafe input, record metrics, and perhaps validate the model’s output. Putting all of that code directly around every ChatClient call works for a while. Then a second endpoint arrives, followed by streaming, and suddenly every model call has its own slightly different pile of plumbing.

Spring AI : Chat Memory

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0530

Large language models are stateless. Send two independent requests to a model, and the second request knows nothing about the first one. That is perfectly fine for one-shot questions, but it makes a chatbot feel surprisingly forgetful:

Spring AI : Structured Output

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0530

Chat models are great at producing prose, but most applications don’t want prose — they want a Java object, a List<String>, or a Map they can bind to a response and return from a REST API.

Spring AI’s Structured Output Converters bridge that gap: they turn plain-text chat responses into typed Java objects, without you having to hand-write a JSON parser or repeat “please respond with valid JSON” in every prompt.

Spring AI : Chat with LLMs

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:00:00 +0530

Calling an LLM is just an HTTP request. The trouble is that every provider has its own API, configuration, and response format.

Spring AI handles that provider-specific plumbing and gives us a familiar Spring API. In this article, we will use ChatClient to talk to OpenAI’s GPT-5 model and then make our prompts reusable with PromptTemplate.

Support Me

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0530

If my articles, videos, or tutorials helped you solve a problem or learn something new, consider buying me a coffee. Your support helps me keep creating free tutorials, videos, and open-source projects for the Java community.

Books

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0530

I have written books focused on helping developers learn Java and Spring Boot through practical examples.

Conferences

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0530

I speak at developer conferences, Java user groups, meetups, and internal engineering events on Java, Spring Boot, Architecture, Testing, and Developer Productivity.

Speaker

Topics

Modern Spring Boot application development
Building modular monoliths and microservices
Testing Spring Boot applications with Testcontainers
Practical architecture for backend systems
Developer productivity and engineering practices
Getting started with AI-assisted development

If you would like me to speak at your event, reach out through the social links on this site.

Courses

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0530

Free video courses from the SivaLabs YouTube channel.

Projects

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 06:36:31 +0000

1. testcontainers-jooq-codegen-maven-plugin

A Maven plugin to run jOOQ code generation using Testcontainers, so database schema-based code generation can run consistently without requiring a locally installed database.

2. sivalabs-agent-skills

A collection of Agent Skills and guidelines for Java/Spring Boot application development.

3. sdd-skills

Agent Skills supporting Spec Driven Development with AI Agents.

4. progen

A project generator CLI tool for quickly creating Spring Boot applications with common best practices baked in.

AI Agents Are Doing The Heavy Lifting, Then Why Am I So Tired?

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 04:59:17 +0530

I love writing code.

Not just because it pays the bills.

I genuinely enjoy the process.

Give me a use case, let me think about the design, write a failing test, make it pass, refactor, move classes around, rename things, delete half the code I wrote an hour ago, run the test suite again, smile because everything is still green… and I can happily spend an entire day doing that.

Confessions of an AI Agent FOMO Survivor

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 04:59:17 +0530

Every morning, I open X/Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube and learn about a brand-new AI engineering discipline that apparently everyone else has already mastered.

A few months ago it was Prompt Engineering.

Then came Context Engineering.

Soon after, people started talking about Agent Skills, Harness Engineering, Loop Engineering, Ralph Wiggum Loops, Sub-Agent Architectures, Agentic Workflows, Cognitive Tooling, and probably three more terms while I was writing this sentence.

At this point I fully expect to wake up tomorrow and discover that “Recursive Quantum Harness Context Loop Engineering” is the new must-have skill for AI developers.

Don't Pollute Your Spring Boot Main EntryPoint Class

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 04:59:17 +0530

Most Spring Boot applications start with a beautifully boring main class.

Then one day we need caching. We add @EnableCaching.

Then we need async processing. We add @EnableAsync.

Then scheduling. Then JPA auditing. Then maybe something else.

Before we know it, the main class has become the place where every framework feature goes to live.

At first glance, this feels harmless. The application starts. The feature works. Everybody moves on.

This works great… until a slice test gets involved.

Let’s look at why adding every @EnableXXX annotation to the Spring Boot main class can make your tests more fragile, and what I prefer to do instead.

A Few Hard Learned Lessons On Structuring Spring Boot Applications

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:59:17 +0530

One of the most common questions developers ask when starting a Spring Boot project is:

How should I structure my code?

If you spend enough time in Java circles, you’ll quickly run into recommendations like Clean Architecture, Hexagonal Architecture, Onion Architecture, Ports and Adapters, and a dozen variations of the same idea.

Now, before anyone gets upset: I think those architectures solve real problems.

The issue is that many teams adopt them on day one, long before they actually have those problems.

Before You Judge, Get Curious

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:59:17 +0530

A few years ago, I was working at a fintech company in Germany. Our business unit planned to build a new offering for customers in Germany and the UK. Our team — product owner, business analyst, developers, and QA — gathered at a location and ran brainstorming sessions. Since we were also using the product ourselves, we were essentially both the builders and the end users.

Feeling Left Behind in Tech? This Is Your 90-Day Comeback Plan

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:59:17 +0530

You’ve been working for years. You know your systems inside out. You’ve solved real problems, handled pressure, and delivered results.

But now you open a job description… and it feels like you’re reading a different language.

New frameworks. New tools. New expectations.

And the thought creeps in: “Have I fallen behind?”

Stepping into Crazy AI World

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:59:17 +0530

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the rapid pace of technological advancements, especially in the field of AI, know that you are not alone. The AI landscape is evolving at an unbelievable speed, with new ideas and tools emerging every day.

The Power of Value Objects

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 04:59:17 +0530

A Value Object is a domain concept defined by its values rather than by identity. For example, we can represent EventId, EventCode or Email as a value object. In this article, let’s explore the benefits of using value objects over primitive types.

Announcing FeatureTracker Application

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 04:59:17 +0530

As a Java Developer Advocate at JetBrains, I frequently demonstrate IntelliJ IDEA features through videos and articles. To do this, I usually create small demo applications focused on specific features. While this works well initially, the number of such applications grows quickly. Soon, it becomes difficult to remember which app was built for what purpose, turning it into a maintenance headache.

Protect Your Mental Health While Being On Social Media

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 23:29:17 +0000

Social media is a double-edged sword. If used properly, it can be immensely helpful. Personally, being on social media, especially on Twitter, helped me to connect with amazing people across the world. This in turn gave me a lot of opportunities such as learning from the experts, job opportunities, a chance to write books, speaking at conferences, etc.

You Can Code Offline With Local AI(Ollama)

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 23:29:17 +0000

ChatGPT and other Generative AI tools took the world by a storm. People are using these AI tools for various purposes such as to explore a topic, to seek answers to their questions or to get help in coding, etc. ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are very popular AI tools that are available for free with some usage limitations.

Spring Boot + Testcontainers Tests at Jet Speed

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 23:29:17 +0000

Spring Boot 3.1.0 introduced support for Testcontainers to simplify local development and testing. Testcontainers helps in writing tests using real dependencies instead of mocks, but it may also increase the test execution time.

My First Impression of Google's NotebookLM

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 23:29:17 +0000

I came across NotebookLM from my social media feed, and it looks interesting.

With NotebookLM, you can upload documents, videos, web URLs and let the AI agents talk about the uploaded material. That sounds intriguing.

Recently I wrote an article about software complexity and shared my viewpoint. Many people appreciated it and some people didn’t. That is fine to have different opinions.

Running your own Spring Initializr and using it from IntelliJ IDEA

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 23:29:17 +0000

If you ever worked with Spring Boot, then you are probably aware of Spring Initializr. The Spring Initializr is a web application that you can use to create a Spring Boot application.

Do you know Spring Initializr itself is an open-source Spring Boot application? You can fork it, customize it, deploy on your infrastructure and use it to generate Spring Boot applications.

Master the Art of Requesting Technical Help: A Handy Email Template

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 23:29:17 +0000

As a software developer, at the beginning of my career, I thought it was more important to learn one more programming language or framework or library. But as years passed by, I realized it is also equally important to learn how to interact with people. Now remote work is becoming new normal and social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are a common place to interact with people across the globe.

About Me

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 13:06:31 +0000

K. Siva Prasad Reddy

I am a software engineer, architect, trainer, and technical content creator. I have been building software professionally since 2006, with most of my work centered around Java, Spring Boot, distributed systems, and backend engineering.

I enjoy taking complex technical ideas and explaining them through practical examples. That is the main reason behind SivaLabs: sharing tutorials, opinions, and learning resources that help developers build better applications with confidence.

Mastering Spring Boot in 5 Stages

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 23:29:17 +0000

Spring Boot is the most popular framework in the Java world to build enterprise applications. Also, Spring Boot is the most sought-after skill to get hired as a Java developer.

Here is my recommended approach to learn Spring Boot.

Thymeleaf Layouts using Fragment Expressions in Spring Boot GraalVM Native Image

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 23:29:17 +0000

Typically, in Spring Boot + Thymeleaf applications, we use thymeleaf-layout-dialect to define the common layout of the web pages and it works fine.

But when we compile the Spring Boot application to GraalVM native image, it is failing due to this error. I tried many suggestions mentioned in the above issue, but none of them worked for me.

Spring AI RAG using Embedding Models and Vector Databases

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 23:29:17 +0000