Liquibase with Spring Boot

Liquibase with Spring Boot

1. What is Liquibase?

Liquibase is a database version control tool. It allows you to manage schema changes (like creating tables, adding columns, indexes, etc.) across environments in a consistent way. With Spring Boot, it integrates seamlessly.

2. Add Dependencies

In your pom.xml (Maven project):

<dependencies>
    <!-- Spring Boot Starter Data JPA -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <!-- H2 database (or use MySQL/Postgres/etc.) -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
        <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>

    <!-- Liquibase -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.liquibase</groupId>
        <artifactId>liquibase-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

For Gradle:

implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-data-jpa'
runtimeOnly 'com.h2database:h2'
implementation 'org.liquibase:liquibase-core'

3. Configure Liquibase in application.yml (or .properties)

spring:
  datasource:
    url: jdbc:h2:mem:testdb
    username: sa
    password: password
    driver-class-name: org.h2.Driver

  liquibase:
    change-log: classpath:db/changelog/db.changelog-master.yaml

Here, we tell Spring Boot where the Liquibase changelog file is.

4. Create Liquibase Changelog File

Create folder: src/main/resources/db/changelog/

Inside it, create: db.changelog-master.yaml

databaseChangeLog:
  - changeSet:
      id: 1
      author: demo
      changes:
        - createTable:
            tableName: customer
            columns:
              - column:
                  name: id
                  type: BIGINT
                  autoIncrement: true
                  constraints:
                    primaryKey: true
              - column:
                  name: name
                  type: VARCHAR(255)
                  constraints:
                    nullable: false
              - column:
                  name: email
                  type: VARCHAR(255)
                  constraints:
                    unique: true

5. Run the Application

When you start your Spring Boot app:

  • Liquibase will automatically run the changelog.
  • The table customer will be created in the database.
  • Liquibase will also create internal tables (DATABASECHANGELOG, DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK) to track executed changes.

6. Example JPA Entity

You can map the created table:

import jakarta.persistence.*;

@Entity
public class Customer {

    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;

    private String name;

    @Column(unique = true, nullable = false)
    private String email;

    // getters and setters
}

7. Adding Another Change

Later, if you want to add a new column:

- changeSet:
    id: 2
    author: demo
    changes:
      - addColumn:
          tableName: customer
          columns:
            - column:
                name: phone
                type: VARCHAR(20)

Restart your app → Liquibase sees that changeSet 2 hasn’t run yet, and applies it.

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