Custom actuator endpoints in Spring Boot - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Custom actuator endpoints

📖 Scenario: You are building a Spring Boot application that needs a custom health check endpoint to report the status of a special service.

🎯 Goal: Create a custom actuator endpoint named customHealth that returns a simple health status message.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a class named CustomHealthEndpoint annotated as a Spring Boot actuator endpoint

Add a method named health that returns a String with the value "Service is running"

Configure the endpoint with the ID customHealth

Expose the custom endpoint through Spring Boot actuator

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Custom actuator endpoints let you add your own health checks or metrics to Spring Boot applications, useful for monitoring and alerting in production.

💼 Career

Knowing how to extend Spring Boot actuator is valuable for backend developers working on microservices and cloud-native applications.

1

Create the custom endpoint class

Create a public class named CustomHealthEndpoint in package com.example.demo.

Spring Boot

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Start by defining a public class named CustomHealthEndpoint inside the package com.example.demo.

2

Add the @Endpoint annotation with id

Annotate the CustomHealthEndpoint class with @Endpoint(id = "customHealth") and import the correct package org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.annotation.Endpoint.

Spring Boot

package com.example.demo;

// Add @Endpoint annotation with id "customHealth" here
public class CustomHealthEndpoint {

}

Need a hint?

Use @Endpoint(id = "customHealth") above the class declaration to define the custom actuator endpoint ID.

3

Add a read operation method

Inside CustomHealthEndpoint, add a public method named health annotated with @ReadOperation that returns a String with the value "Service is running". Import org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.annotation.ReadOperation.

Spring Boot

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.annotation.Endpoint;

// Import ReadOperation and add a method annotated with @ReadOperation
@Endpoint(id = "customHealth")
public class CustomHealthEndpoint {

    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Add a method health with @ReadOperation that returns the string "Service is running".

4

Enable the custom endpoint in application properties

In src/main/resources/application.properties, add the line management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=customHealth to expose the custom endpoint over HTTP.

Spring Boot

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.annotation.Endpoint;
import org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.annotation.ReadOperation;

@Endpoint(id = "customHealth")
public class CustomHealthEndpoint {

    @ReadOperation
    public String health() {
        return "Service is running";
    }
}

# Add the property below in application.properties
# Your code here

Need a hint?

To make the custom endpoint accessible via HTTP, add management.endpoints.web.exposure.include=customHealth in application.properties.