Spring Boot Reviewer

---
name: "spring-boot-reviewer"
description: "Describe what this skill helps an agent do."
version: "0.1.0"
since: "2026-09-09"
last_modified: "2026-09-09"
authors:
  - "platform-engineering"
stability: "experimental"
min_platform_version:
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deprecated_since:
replaces:
supersedes: []
changelog:
  - version: "0.1.0"
    date: "2026-09-09"
    change: "Initial generated production-ready SDLC / DevSecOps skill"
---
# Spring Boot Reviewer

## Purpose

Review Spring Boot applications for dependency injection correctness, bean lifecycle, transaction boundary design, JPA and Hibernate pitfalls, Spring Security configuration, externalised configuration, actuator security, and Spring Boot 3.x migration readiness. Treat regulatory, security, and operational references as review and evidence guidance, not legal advice.

## Goal and behavioral contract

The authoritative Goal and artifact references are defined in `descriptor.yaml`. Capability boundaries, identity and delegation requirements, tool permissions, data boundaries, invariants, approval requirements, output contract, and operational limits are defined in `contract.yaml`. MCP/A2A trust boundaries and the reviewed execution closure live in `integrations/` and `dependencies.yaml`; ASPS and assurance requirements live in `assurance.yaml`.

Treat those declarations as mandatory execution constraints. `skcr` validates requirements but does not claim verification or enforce them at runtime.

## When to use

- Spring Boot best practices decisions, controls, or operating practices need independent review.
- A change affects Spring Boot best practices artifacts such as Spring Boot application configuration, bean definition and injection point, transaction boundary annotation, JPA entity and repository, Spring Security configuration, actuator endpoint exposure setting.
- The user needs evidence-oriented findings for risks such as circular bean dependency causing startup failure, @Transactional on private method or wrong proxy type being bypassed, N+1 query from lazy-loaded JPA association without fetch join, Spring Security permitting all by default after configuration mistake, sensitive actuator endpoint exposed without authentication, application secret stored in application.properties committed to version control.
- Audit, security, operations, or platform stakeholders need a concise readiness position.
- Existing documentation, tickets, tests, or logs must be turned into actionable remediation items.

## Operating model

1. Identify the relevant Spring Boot best practices artifacts, owners, systems, environments, and review boundary.
2. Compare the available artifacts against expected signals such as Spring Boot startup log and bean graph, transaction rollback or commit log, SQL query count from Hibernate statistics, Spring Security filter chain audit, actuator endpoint list with access control, externalized configuration review against 12-factor principles.
3. Separate confirmed gaps from assumptions, missing evidence, and advisory improvement opportunities.
4. Rate findings by operational, security, compliance, customer, and auditability impact.
5. Recommend minimal remediation steps, validation evidence, owners, and review cadence.

## Spec-Driven Change Context

- Treat repository specs, ADRs, runbooks, change proposals, design notes, and task files as durable context that outlives a chat session.
- For non-trivial changes, prefer a checked-in change artifact or equivalent proposal/design/tasks record before implementation begins.
- Capture requirement deltas explicitly: added, modified, removed, deprecated, or unchanged behavior.
- Keep implementation tasks traceable to acceptance criteria, affected specs, validation commands, and owners.
- During verification, compare the implementation against the proposal, design decisions, task checklist, and spec deltas.
- After completion, sync or archive completed change artifacts so the repository's source of truth reflects the final behavior.
- If the repository has no spec workflow yet, report the missing artifact and provide a minimal proposal/spec/tasks outline instead of relying on chat-only intent.

## Skill-Specific Review Scope

- Primary artifacts: Spring Boot application configuration, bean definition and injection point, transaction boundary annotation, JPA entity and repository, Spring Security configuration, actuator endpoint exposure setting.
- Risk themes: circular bean dependency causing startup failure, @Transactional on private method or wrong proxy type being bypassed, N+1 query from lazy-loaded JPA association without fetch join, Spring Security permitting all by default after configuration mistake, sensitive actuator endpoint exposed without authentication, application secret stored in application.properties committed to version control.
- Evidence signals: Spring Boot startup log and bean graph, transaction rollback or commit log, SQL query count from Hibernate statistics, Spring Security filter chain audit, actuator endpoint list with access control, externalized configuration review against 12-factor principles.
- Ownership, approvals, review cadence, exception handling, and residual-risk decisions.
- Traceability from requirement or control intent to implementation, validation, and retained evidence.

## Skill-Specific Checklist

- [ ] Confirm the review boundary covers the right Spring Boot best practices systems, teams, and environments.
- [ ] Inventory and inspect the current Spring Boot application configuration.
- [ ] Check whether bean definition and injection point is current, approved, versioned, and owned.
- [ ] Verify that transaction boundary annotation has test, ticket, log, or approval support.
- [ ] Look for circular bean dependency causing startup failure and record concrete repository or process evidence.
- [ ] Look for @Transactional on private method or wrong proxy type being bypassed and identify affected assets, services, or stakeholders.
- [ ] Look for N+1 query from lazy-loaded JPA association without fetch join and classify the operational or audit impact.
- [ ] Use Spring Boot startup log and bean graph to validate that the control or practice is operating.
- [ ] Use transaction rollback or commit log to confirm ownership, timing, and reproducibility.
- [ ] Check exception, risk-acceptance, and expiry handling for Spring Boot best practices.
- [ ] Confirm remediation items have owners, due dates, validation steps, and evidence expectations.
- [ ] Identify missing artifacts separately from weak artifacts so the next action is unambiguous.
- [ ] Review whether logging, reporting, or retained evidence exposes sensitive data unnecessarily.

## Decision Rules

- If Spring Boot application configuration is missing for a critical service, raise at least a high-severity readiness gap.
- If transaction rollback or commit log cannot be tied to an owner and approval, treat the outcome as unauditable until corrected.
- If JPA entity and repository is present but expired or untested, require validation before accepting residual risk.
- If the only support is verbal or chat-only context, request durable ticket, document, log, or test evidence.
- If remediation would require a process or architecture decision, assign a decision owner instead of prescribing legal conclusions.
- If compensating measures reduce likelihood but not impact, keep the residual-risk statement explicit.

## Finding Categories

- Missing or stale Spring Boot best practices artifact.
- Unclear ownership, approval, review cadence, or accountability.
- Insufficient validation, test proof, logs, ticket trail, or retained audit material.
- Unreviewed exception, residual risk, expiry, or compensating measure.
- Policy, architecture, operational, or platform implementation drift.
- Sensitive-data exposure in logs, reports, prompts, artifacts, or evidence packages.

## Severity Guidance

- Critical: a gap in Spring Boot best practices creates immediate outage, data-loss, privilege, regulatory-reporting, or irreversible business risk.
- High: Spring Boot application configuration is missing, unowned, untested, or unauditable for a critical service or material change.
- Medium: bean definition and injection point exists but is stale, incomplete, inconsistently enforced, or weakly evidenced.
- Low: wording, metadata, formatting, link freshness, or minor traceability improvements are needed.

## DevSecOps Guardrails

- Do not read secrets, `.env` files, private keys, production credentials, masked CI/CD variables, database dumps, or sensitive logs unless explicitly required.
- Do not push, deploy, publish, merge, or create releases unless explicitly asked.
- Prefer merge requests, reviewable diffs, and auditable validation evidence.
- Prefer least privilege, minimal changes, and explicit rollback notes.
- Do not fabricate test results, repository state, commands, security findings, or validation outcomes.
- Report assumptions, uncertainty, residual risk, and validation gaps clearly.

## Output Requirements

- Findings ordered by severity with affected Spring Boot best practices artifacts and evidence references.
- Coverage note for reviewed artifacts: Spring Boot application configuration, bean definition and injection point, transaction boundary annotation, JPA entity and repository, Spring Security configuration, actuator endpoint exposure setting.
- Risk note covering relevant themes: circular bean dependency causing startup failure, @Transactional on private method or wrong proxy type being bypassed, N+1 query from lazy-loaded JPA association without fetch join, Spring Security permitting all by default after configuration mistake, sensitive actuator endpoint exposed without authentication, application secret stored in application.properties committed to version control.
- Evidence request list using expected signals: Spring Boot startup log and bean graph, transaction rollback or commit log, SQL query count from Hibernate statistics, Spring Security filter chain audit, actuator endpoint list with access control, externalized configuration review against 12-factor principles.
- Deliverables or updates needed: Spring Boot review findings, bean and transaction boundary recommendations, JPA and query optimisation gap list, Spring Security hardening notes, actuator and configuration security findings, Spring Boot 3.x migration readiness assessment.
- Residual-risk, assumptions, missing-context, and validation-gap summary.

## Acceptance Criteria

- Relevant Spring Boot best practices artifacts are identified, current, owned, and versioned where applicable.
- Each high-impact finding includes evidence, impact, likelihood, owner, and remediation guidance.
- Missing evidence is separated from failed controls or weak implementation.
- Exceptions and risk acceptances include owner, rationale, expiry, and compensating measures.
- Recommendations are review-oriented and avoid presenting regulatory interpretation as legal advice.
- Final output states pass, conditional pass, or blocked readiness with validation gaps.

## Anti-Patterns

- Treating a policy title or control name as proof that the practice operates effectively.
- Collapsing missing evidence and failed implementation into one vague finding.
- Accepting open-ended exceptions without owner, expiry, impact, likelihood, and compensating measures.
- Making legal, regulatory, or audit conclusions beyond the available evidence and review scope.
- Recommending broad process rewrites when a targeted owner, test, ticket, or evidence fix is enough.
- Copying sensitive production data into examples, evidence packages, prompts, or reports.

## Changelog

### 0.1.0 - 2026-09-09

- Initial generated production-ready SDLC / DevSecOps skill.