Actuator Endpoints

Actuator endpoints let you monitor and interact with your application. Spring Boot includes a number of built-in endpoints and lets you add your own. For example, the health endpoint provides basic application health information.

You can control access to each individual endpoint and expose them (make them remotely accessible) over HTTP or JMX. An endpoint is considered to be available when access to it is permitted and it is exposed. The built-in endpoints are auto-configured only when they are available. Most applications choose exposure over HTTP, where the ID of the endpoint and a prefix of /actuator is mapped to a URL. For example, by default, the health endpoint is mapped to /actuator/health.

TIP

To learn more about the Actuator's endpoints and their request and response formats, see the Spring Boot Actuator API documentation.

Available Endpoints

The following technology-agnostic endpoints are available:

If your application is a web application (Spring MVC, Spring WebFlux, or Jersey), you can use the following additional endpoints:

Controlling Access to Endpoints

By default, access to all endpoints except for shutdown and heapdump is unrestricted. To configure the permitted access to an endpoint, use its management.endpoint.<id>.access property. The following example allows unrestricted access to the shutdown endpoint:

management:
  endpoint:
    shutdown:
      access: unrestricted

If you prefer access to be opt-in rather than opt-out, set the management.endpoints.access.default property to none and use individual endpoint access properties to opt back in. The following example allows read-only access to the loggers endpoint and denies access to all other endpoints:

management:
  endpoints:
    access:
      default: none
  endpoint:
    loggers:
      access: read-only

NOTE

Inaccessible endpoints are removed entirely from the application context. If you want to change only the technologies over which an endpoint is exposed, use the include and exclude properties instead.

Limiting Access

Application-wide endpoint access can be limited using the management.endpoints.access.max-permitted property. This property takes precedence over the default access or an individual endpoint's access level. Set it to none to make all endpoints inaccessible. Set it to read-only to only allow read access to endpoints.

For @Endpoint, @JmxEndpoint, and @WebEndpoint, read access equates to the endpoint methods annotated with @ReadOperation. For @ControllerEndpoint and @RestControllerEndpoint, read access equates to HTTP GET requests.

Exposing Endpoints

By default, only the health endpoint is exposed over HTTP and JMX. To configure which endpoints are exposed, use the include and exclude properties:

management:
  endpoints:
    web:
      exposure:
        include: "health,info,metrics"
        exclude: "beans"

The include property lists the IDs of the endpoints that are exposed. The exclude property lists the IDs of the endpoints that should not be exposed. The exclude property takes precedence over the include property.

To expose all endpoints over HTTP:

management:
  endpoints:
    web:
      exposure:
        include: "*"

Security

For security purposes, only the /health endpoint is exposed over HTTP by default. You can use the management.endpoints.web.exposure.include property to configure the endpoints that are exposed.

If Spring Security is on the classpath and no other WebSecurityConfigurer bean is present, all actuators other than /health are secured by Spring Boot auto-configuration. If you define a custom WebSecurityConfigurer bean, Spring Boot auto-configuration backs off and lets you fully control the actuator access rules.

Custom Endpoints

You can add additional endpoints by using @Endpoint and @Component annotations:

@Component
@Endpoint(id = "custom")
public class CustomEndpoint {

    @ReadOperation
    public String customEndpoint() {
        return "Custom endpoint response";
    }
}

Web Endpoints

For web-specific endpoints, use @WebEndpoint:

@Component
@WebEndpoint(id = "web-custom")
public class WebCustomEndpoint {

    @ReadOperation
    public String webCustomEndpoint() {
        return "Web custom endpoint response";
    }
}

JMX Endpoints

For JMX-specific endpoints, use @JmxEndpoint:

@Component
@JmxEndpoint(id = "jmx-custom")
public class JmxCustomEndpoint {

    @ReadOperation
    public String jmxCustomEndpoint() {
        return "JMX custom endpoint response";
    }
}

Health Endpoint

The health endpoint provides detailed information about the health of the application. By default, only health status is shown to unauthenticated users:

{
  "status": "UP"
}

To show detailed health information:

management:
  endpoint:
    health:
      show-details: always

Custom Health Indicators

You can provide custom health information by registering Spring beans that implement the HealthIndicator interface:

@Component
public class CustomHealthIndicator implements HealthIndicator {

    @Override
    public Health health() {
        // Perform custom health check
        boolean isHealthy = checkHealth();
        
        if (isHealthy) {
            return Health.up()
                .withDetail("custom", "Service is running")
                .build();
        } else {
            return Health.down()
                .withDetail("custom", "Service is down")
                .build();
        }
    }
    
    private boolean checkHealth() {
        // Custom health check logic
        return true;
    }
}

Info Endpoint

The info endpoint publishes information about your application. You can customize this information by implementing InfoContributor:

@Component
public class CustomInfoContributor implements InfoContributor {

    @Override
    public void contribute(Info.Builder builder) {
        builder.withDetail("custom", "Custom application info");
    }
}

Git Information

To expose git information in the info endpoint, add the following to your build:

Maven:

<plugin>
    <groupId>pl.project13.maven</groupId>
    <artifactId>git-commit-id-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>

Gradle:

plugins {
    id "com.gorylenko.gradle-git-properties" version "2.4.1"
}

Build Information

Build information can be added to the info endpoint by configuring the build plugins:

Maven:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>build-info</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Gradle:

springBoot {
    buildInfo()
}

Metrics Endpoint

The metrics endpoint provides access to application metrics collected by Micrometer. You can view all available metrics:

GET /actuator/metrics

Or view a specific metric:

GET /actuator/metrics/jvm.memory.used

Custom Metrics

You can add custom metrics using Micrometer:

@Component
public class CustomMetrics {

    private final Counter customCounter;
    private final Timer customTimer;

    public CustomMetrics(MeterRegistry meterRegistry) {
        this.customCounter = Counter.builder("custom.requests")
            .description("Custom request counter")
            .register(meterRegistry);
            
        this.customTimer = Timer.builder("custom.processing.time")
            .description("Custom processing time")
            .register(meterRegistry);
    }

    public void incrementCounter() {
        customCounter.increment();
    }

    public void recordTime(Duration duration) {
        customTimer.record(duration);
    }
}

Environment Endpoint

The env endpoint exposes properties from the Spring Environment. This includes configuration properties, system properties, environment variables, and more.

To view a specific property:

GET /actuator/env/server.port

Loggers Endpoint

The loggers endpoint shows and allows modification of logger levels in your application.

To view all loggers:

GET /actuator/loggers

To view a specific logger:

GET /actuator/loggers/com.example.MyClass

To change a logger level:

POST /actuator/loggers/com.example.MyClass
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "configuredLevel": "DEBUG"
}

Configuration Properties Endpoint

The configprops endpoint displays all @ConfigurationProperties in your application:

GET /actuator/configprops

Properties that may contain sensitive information are masked by default.

Thread Dump Endpoint

The threaddump endpoint provides a thread dump of the application:

GET /actuator/threaddump

This is useful for diagnosing performance issues and detecting deadlocks.

Shutdown Endpoint

The shutdown endpoint allows you to gracefully shut down the application. It's disabled by default for security reasons:

management:
  endpoint:
    shutdown:
      enabled: true

To trigger shutdown:

POST /actuator/shutdown

WARNING

The shutdown endpoint should be secured in production environments as it can terminate the application.