spring-boot-event-driven-patterns

Spring Boot Event-Driven Patterns

Overview

Implement Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) patterns in Spring Boot 3.x using domain events, ApplicationEventPublisher, @TransactionalEventListener, and distributed messaging with Kafka and Spring Cloud Stream.

When to Use

• Implementing event-driven microservices with Kafka messaging
• Publishing domain events from aggregate roots in DDD architectures
• Setting up transactional event listeners that fire after database commits
• Adding async messaging with producers and consumers via Spring Kafka
• Ensuring reliable event delivery using the transactional outbox pattern
• Replacing synchronous calls with event-based communication between services

Quick Reference

Concept	Description
Domain Events	Immutable events extending DomainEvent base class with eventId, occurredAt, correlationId
Event Publishing	ApplicationEventPublisher.publishEvent() for local, KafkaTemplate for distributed
Event Listening	@TransactionalEventListener(phase = AFTER_COMMIT) for reliable handling
Kafka	@KafkaListener(topics = "...") for distributed event consumption
Spring Cloud Stream	Functional programming model with Consumer beans
Outbox Pattern	Atomic event storage with business data, scheduled publisher

Examples

Monolithic to Event-Driven Refactoring

Before (Anti-Pattern):

@Transactional
public Order processOrder(OrderRequest request) {
    Order order = orderRepository.save(request);
    inventoryService.reserve(order.getItems()); // Blocking
    paymentService.charge(order.getPayment()); // Blocking
    emailService.sendConfirmation(order); // Blocking
    return order;
}

After (Event-Driven):

@Transactional
public Order processOrder(OrderRequest request) {
    Order order = Order.create(request);
    orderRepository.save(order);

    // Publish event after transaction commits
    eventPublisher.publishEvent(new OrderCreatedEvent(order.getId(), order.getItems()));

    return order;
}

@Component
public class OrderEventHandler {
    @TransactionalEventListener(phase = TransactionPhase.AFTER_COMMIT)
    public void handleOrderCreated(OrderCreatedEvent event) {
        // Execute asynchronously after the order is saved
        inventoryService.reserve(event.getItems());
        paymentService.charge(event.getPayment());
    }
}