Required Spring Boot starters for REST + JPA + PostgreSQL

Introduction

In Maven, a dependency is a JAR in your build. A Spring Boot “starter” is a pom that pulls a bundle of libraries that work together. This post names the set we use for: Web, JPA + PostgreSQL, Lombok, Bean Validation, DevTools.

Real-world explanation (each starter)

Dependency	What it brings
`spring-boot-starter-web`	Spring MVC, Jackson JSON, Tomcat embedded, servlet stack
`spring-boot-starter-data-jpa`	Hibernate as JPA, `EntityManager`, `spring-data-jpa` (repositories)
`postgresql` (driver)	JDBC driver for `jdbc:postgresql://` URLs
`lombok`	Compile-time code generation: `@Data`, `@Builder`, loggers; optional but very common in tutorials and teams
`spring-boot-starter-validation`	Jakarta Bean Validation 3 (`@NotNull`, etc.) and integration with Web
`spring-boot-devtools` (optional)	Restart in dev, property default tweaks; not for production classpath

pom.xml fragment (versions from Boot parent, no manual versions on starters)

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-validation</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
    <optional>true</optional>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
    <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
    <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
    <optional>true</optional>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

Lombok: IDE setup

IntelliJ — Lombok plugin enabled, annotation processing on
Eclipse — Lombok agent install; or skip Lombok and write getters by hand in learning

Step-by-step: verify the stack

mvn dependency:tree — you should see hibernate-core, jackson-databind, tomcat-embed, spring-data-jpa transitively under starters.
Run the app: no entities yet, but Boot should start and (if url valid) create a HikariCP pool. If the DB is down, you will see a failing datasource; fix URL first.

Common mistakes

Adding hibernate-core manually on top of starter-data-jpa—conflicting version unless you know what you are doing
Missing validation starter but using @Valid in controllers without understanding that some integration comes from the starter you picked
Shipping DevTools to production fat JAR: mark optional and do not depend on it in business code

Best practices

Keep the BOM parent (spring-boot-starter-parent) in charge of version for Spring-related deps
Use runtime scope for JDBC drivers: not needed to compile your app code, only to run

Final summary

You need web, data-jpa, validation, the PostgreSQL driver, Lombok if you use it, and devtools in dev. Next we define entities in the JPA model layer.