Java Spring Monorepo AI Agents Guide | Generated by AI

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Awesome question. Here are practical, high-leverage AI agents you can tailor for a Java/Spring monorepo (multi-module, Maven/Jetty/Liberty, JaCoCo, etc.). I’ll focus on concrete triggers, what they produce, and how to wire them up—no tables.

Core engineering agents

1) PR Code Reviewer (Spring-aware)

Triggers: On pull request.
What it does: Reads diffs + touched Spring beans/config; flags DI issues, mis-scoped beans, missing @Transactional, N+1 risks with JPA, misused @Scheduled, thread-leaks with async, blocking calls on reactive chains.
Inputs: Diff + pom.xml + application*.yml + @Configuration classes.
Outputs: Line-comment suggestions, risk summary, quick-fix patches.

2) Dependency & Plugin Upgrader

Triggers: Daily/weekly job.
What it does: Proposes compatible version bumps for Spring Boot/Framework, Spring Data/Cloud, Jetty/Liberty, Maven plugins, checks CVEs, runs smoke build.
Outputs: PRs grouped by risk (patch, minor, major), with changelog and rollback note.

3) API Contract Guardian

Triggers: On PRs touching controllers or openapi.yaml.
What it does: Keeps OpenAPI spec in sync with Spring MVC annotations; detects breaking changes (HTTP codes, field renames, nullable/required).
Outputs: Comment with diff of API surface; optional Pact-style contract test stubs.

4) Test Author & Flaky-Test Doctor

Triggers: On PR (low test delta) and nightly.
What it does: Generates/extends JUnit 5 tests for services/controllers/repos; stabilizes flakies (time, temp dirs, concurrency), proposes deterministic patterns, isolates clock with Clock.
Outputs: New tests, parameterization, hints to replace sleeps with Awaitility.

5) Coverage Orchestrator (Unit+IT, multi-module)

Triggers: On CI after integration tests.
What it does: Attaches JaCoCo agent to Jetty/Liberty, merges jacoco.exec/jacoco-it.exec, maps classes across modules, highlights untested critical paths.
Outputs: Merged HTML/XML report; a comment listing top 10 uncovered methods per module with suggested test skeletons.

6) Log & Incident Triage

Triggers: On failed CI jobs, or streaming from staging/prod.
What it does: Clusters stack traces, correlates with last deploy, links to suspect commits; suggests quick diffs and feature flags to toggle.
Outputs: Root-cause hypotheses, “next step” checklist, Grafana/ELK links.

7) Performance Profiler Coach

Triggers: On load-test run or slow endpoint alert.
What it does: Reads JFR/async-profiler output + Spring actuator metrics; spots slow @Transactional boundaries, N+1, heavyweight mappers, mis-sized pools.
Outputs: Focused perf plan (JPA fetch graph hints, indexes, pool sizes, cache).

8) Database Migration Assistant (Db2/MySQL/Postgres aware)

Triggers: On Flyway/Liquibase change or slow query reports.
What it does: Reviews DDL for locking, adds indexes, simulates migration order; produces rollback scripts; rewrites inefficient JPQL/Criteria to SQL with hints.
Outputs: Reviewed migration PR, explain-plan notes, safe rollout steps.

9) Security & Secrets Sentinel

Triggers: On every PR and nightly scan.
What it does: SAST for Spring Security misconfig, CSRF/headers, deserialization, SpEL injection; scans for secrets in YAML, properties, test fixtures.
Outputs: Inline PR annotations, suggested SecurityFilterChain diffs.

10) Config Drift & Profile Auditor

Triggers: On PRs touching application*.yml.
What it does: Validates profile overlays, env var bindings, missing defaults; detects prod-only surprises (e.g., different spring.jpa.open-in-view).
Outputs: “Effective config” preview by profile and environment.

11) Build Cop (Maven multi-module)

Triggers: On every build.
What it does: Diagnoses plugin ordering, reproducible builds, encoding warnings, test fork settings, Surefire/Failsafe handoff, module graph regressions.
Outputs: Specific pom.xml patches and a faster build recipe.

12) Release Notes & Changelog Writer

Triggers: On tag or release branch merge.
What it does: Groups commits by conventional scope/module; pulls notable API changes & migrations; includes upgrade steps.
Outputs: CHANGELOG.md section + GitHub Release body draft.

Cross-cutting “glue” patterns

Event sources: GitHub PRs/Actions, Jenkins, Maven phases, Gradle tasks (if any), log pipelines, JFR outputs, Actuator metrics, Pact/Postman runs. Context packs: Diff + touched modules, pom.xml trees, OpenAPI, application*.yml, key configs (SecurityFilterChain, DataSource, JpaRepositories), test reports, JaCoCo XML, profiler/flamegraphs. Response targets: PR comments with code-fenced patches, status checks, auto-PRs, markdown reports stored as build artifacts.

Minimal wiring (copy-paste friendly)

1) GitHub Action step to prep repo context for agents

- name: Prepare Spring context bundle
  run: |
    mkdir -p .agent_ctx
    git diff -U0 origin/main... > .agent_ctx/diff.patch || true
    find . -name "pom.xml" -o -name "build.gradle*" > .agent_ctx/build_files.txt
    find . -name "application*.yml" -o -name "application*.properties" > .agent_ctx/configs.txt
    find . -name "openapi*.yaml" -o -name "openapi*.yml" > .agent_ctx/openapi.txt

2) JaCoCo merge (unit + IT) for multi-module

mvn -q -DskipITs=false -P it-tests verify
mvn -q org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:prepare-agent verify
mvn -q org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:report-aggregate
# If you collect external IT with a running Jetty/Liberty:
# java -javaagent:jacocoagent.jar=destfile=jacoco-it.exec,append=true ...
# then merge:
mvn -q org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:merge \
  -DdestFile=target/jacoco-merged.exec \
  -Dfile1=target/jacoco.exec -Dfile2=target/jacoco-it.exec
mvn -q org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:report \
  -DdataFile=target/jacoco-merged.exec

3) PR comment helper (ChatOps style)

- name: Post agent findings
  if: always()
  run: |
    echo "### API Contract Changes" > agent-comment.md
    echo "" >> agent-comment.md
    cat target/api-diff.md >> agent-comment.md || true
- uses: marocchino/sticky-pull-request-comment@v2
  with:
    path: agent-comment.md

What to build first (highest ROI)

PR Code Review + Config Auditor: catches 70% of common Spring mistakes early.
Coverage Orchestrator: merges unit and external IT (your case) and outputs test TODOs per module.
API Contract Guardian: prevents breaking clients; small effort, big pain avoided.
Dependency Upgrader + Security Sentinel: steady hygiene with minimal noise.

Guardrails & quality

Determinism: Agents should include rule IDs and links to the exact code lines they analyzed.
Change budgets: Cap auto-edits to small patches; larger refactors become draft PRs.
Privacy/Access: Restrict prod logs/DB snapshots; redact secrets before model calls.
Metrics: Track MTTR (fail → fix), flaky rate, test coverage delta, perf SLIs. Use weekly agent scorecards.

If you want, I can:

Draft a ready-to-drop GitHub Actions workflow that runs “PR Code Review + API Contract Guardian + Coverage Orchestrator” using your modules and JaCoCo setup.
Generate starter rules tuned to your stack (Jetty/Liberty, Db2, multi-module Maven).

Tell me your repo structure (module names) and how you currently run IT (Jetty vs Liberty), and I’ll ship the YAML + small helper scripts.

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