Building an application is only half the job — monitoring and operating it in production is equally important.
Spring Boot Actuator provides production-ready features that help you monitor, manage, and understand your application at runtime.

This post explains what Actuator is, how it works, and how to use it effectively.

---

1. What Is Spring Boot Actuator?

Spring Boot Actuator adds operational endpoints to your application that expose:

• Health information
• Metrics
• Application details
• Environment info
• Thread dumps
• Mappings and configs

These endpoints help teams monitor and manage applications in production.

---

2. Adding Actuator to Your Project

Add the dependency.

Maven

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
</dependency>

Gradle

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-actuator'
}

Once added, Actuator endpoints are available automatically.

---

3. Common Actuator Endpoints

By default, Actuator exposes a limited set of endpoints.

Endpoint	Purpose
/actuator/health	Application health
/actuator/info	App information
/actuator/metrics	Metrics data
/actuator/env	Environment properties
/actuator/beans	Bean definitions
/actuator/mappings	Request mappings

---

4. Health Endpoint

The /actuator/health endpoint shows application health.

Example response:

{
  "status": "UP"
}

Spring Boot automatically checks:

• Disk space
• Database connectivity
• Custom health indicators

---

5. Custom Health Indicators

You can define your own health checks.

@Component
public class CustomHealthIndicator implements HealthIndicator {

    @Override
    public Health health() {
        return Health.up()
                .withDetail("service", "Available")
                .build();
    }
}

This integrates seamlessly with /health.

---

6. Metrics Endpoint

The /actuator/metrics endpoint exposes metrics like:

• JVM memory
• CPU usage
• HTTP request counts
• Response times

Example:

/actuator/metrics/http.server.requests

Metrics are collected using Micrometer.

---

7. Integrating with Monitoring Tools

Actuator integrates with:

• Prometheus
• Grafana
• Datadog
• New Relic

This enables real-time dashboards and alerts.

---

8. Exposing Endpoints Safely

Never expose all endpoints publicly.

Configure exposure:

management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=health,info,metrics

Restrict sensitive endpoints in production.

---

9. Securing Actuator Endpoints

Use Spring Security to protect Actuator.

Example:

management.endpoint.health.show-details=when_authorized

Only authorized users can see details.

---

10. Actuator Info Endpoint

Customize /actuator/info:

info.app.name=Demo App
info.app.version=1.0.0

Useful for build and deployment visibility.

---

11. Actuator in Production

Best practices:

• Expose minimal endpoints
• Secure endpoints properly
• Integrate with monitoring tools
• Monitor metrics continuously

Actuator is essential for production-grade systems.

---

12. Summary

• Actuator provides runtime insights
• Health checks show system status
• Metrics enable performance monitoring
• Endpoints must be secured
• Critical for production readiness

With Actuator, your Spring Boot application becomes observable and manageable.

---

Series Complete 🎉

You have now completed the Spring Boot Core Features series.

---

What's Next?

Next logical series:

• Spring Boot REST APIs
• Spring Boot with Databases & JPA
• Spring Boot Security
• Microservices with Spring Boot

Tell me which series you want to start next, and we’ll continue.