Use when creating database migrations, schema changes, seed data, or any SQL that modifies database structure. Covers Flyway naming conventions, versioning, and safe migration patterns.

Use when adding hypermedia links to REST responses, building self-describing APIs, or implementing Spring HATEOAS. Use when you see EntityModel, CollectionModel, or RepresentationModel in the project.

Use when calling external HTTP APIs from Spring Boot 3 / Spring Framework 6 with declarative HttpExchange interfaces. Covers manual proxy registration, RestClient versus WebClient, and timeout and error handling conventions.

Use when working in a multi-module Maven project. Covers parent POM conventions, shared dependency management, inter-module rules, build ordering, and Spring Boot 4 modular starter selection.

Use when annotating nullability in Spring Boot 3 / Spring Framework 6 code, integrating Kotlin, or adding static nullability checks without assuming Spring Framework 7 JSpecify defaults.

Use when configuring Spring Boot as an OAuth2 resource server, validating JWTs from an external auth provider (Keycloak, Auth0, Okta, Cognito), extracting claims, or implementing scope-based authorization.

Use when the project follows API-first / OpenAPI-first approach: generating controller interfaces, DTOs, and clients from an OpenAPI spec. Use when you see openapi.yaml, openapi-generator-maven-plugin, or ApiDelegate pattern in the project.

Use when implementing error handling, exception mappers, or error response formatting. Enforces RFC 9457 (Problem Details for HTTP APIs) using Spring's built-in ProblemDetail.

Use when adding retries, backoff, or concurrency protection to Spring Boot 3 / Spring Framework 6 services. Covers Spring Retry or Resilience4j selection, proxy behavior, and transaction limits.

Use when generating REST controllers, response wrappers, DTOs, error handlers, or any HTTP-facing code. Defines response envelope, HTTP status mapping, pagination, and versioning.

Use when integrating LLMs, chat clients, embeddings, RAG pipelines, or AI agents into Spring Boot. Covers Spring AI 2.0 ChatClient, prompt templates, embeddings, vector stores, and structured output. Use when user mentions Spring AI, LLM, ChatGPT, Claude, RAG, embeddings.

Use when building batch jobs, ETL pipelines, scheduled imports/exports, or any chunk-oriented bulk processing with Spring Batch. Covers the Spring Batch 5 / Boot 3 builder API, restartability and idempotent job parameters, reader/writer thread-safety, fault tolerance, and chunk transaction boundaries.

Use when implementing caching, session storage, rate limiting, or any Redis integration. Covers cache-aside pattern, key naming, TTL strategy, and serialization config.

Use when implementing authentication, authorization, JWT tokens, security filters, password encoding, or any Spring Security configuration. Covers stateless JWT auth, access and refresh token validation, RBAC, and method-level security.

Use when working with @Transactional, multi-step database operations, distributed transactions, or any code that needs atomicity guarantees. Covers propagation rules, isolation levels, read-only optimization, and common pitfalls.