4.1. Project Structure and Dependencies

4.1. Project Structure

4.1.1. Spring Boot Version

• Required: Spring Boot 3.x (use the latest patch version)
• Spring Boot 3.x requires Java 17 or higher; this standard specifies Java 21 as the baseline.

4.1.2. Profile Strategy

Application configuration must be separated by profile.

Profile	Purpose	Activation Method
local	Local development	Default when running from IDE
dev	Development server	Specified during CircleCI deployment
staging	Staging server	Specified during CircleCI deployment
prod	Production server	Specified during CircleCI deployment

4.2. Dependency Management

4.2.1. Spring Boot BOM

Use spring-boot-starter-parent as the parent to manage dependency versions centrally.

<parent>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
  <version>3.4.3</version>
  <relativePath/>
</parent>

4.2.2. Dependency Principles

• Dependencies managed by the Spring Boot BOM must not specify explicit versions.
• External library versions must be defined in <properties> and referenced from there.
• SNAPSHOT dependencies must not be used in production builds.