Introducing Archify: From Architecture Idea to Spring Boot Code

Source: Dev.to

The Problem

Every backend developer has experienced this moment: you start a new project with the architecture already in mind—perhaps a simple REST service with a database, or multiple services communicating with each other. Before you can work on the real logic, you spend time doing the same setup over and over:

• Create the project
• Add dependencies
• Create entities
• Create repositories
• Create services
• Create controllers
• Wire everything together

None of this is hard, but it is repetitive.

Introducing Archify

Archify is a tool that turns an architecture idea into a ready‑to‑run Spring Boot project.

Modern backend development is heavily architecture‑driven. When starting a project we already know the basic structure:

• A REST service
• A PostgreSQL database (or another data store)
• A few entities
• CRUD APIs
• Possibly multiple services communicating with each other

Existing tools only solve part of the problem. Spring Initializr creates a basic project skeleton with dependencies and configuration, but it does not generate the actual application structure (entities, repositories, controllers, etc.).

Archify lets you:

1. Define the architecture
2. Generate working code

How It Works

Choose a Recipe

Select a predefined recipe, such as:

• REST service with PostgreSQL
• Two services communicating via REST

Define the Domain Model

Provide a simple model definition. Example:

User:
  name: String
  email: String

Generated Output

Archify then produces a complete Spring Boot service containing:

• Entity classes
• Repository interfaces
• Service layer
• REST controller
• Database configuration
• Maven build setup

You can start the generated project immediately:

./mvnw spring-boot:run

Sharing Architecture Blueprints

Archify supports a concise YAML format that can be shared with others. Example blueprint:

recipe: rest-postgres
serviceName: user-service
entities:
  - name: User
    fields:
      - name: name
        type: String
      - name: email
        type: String

This file serves as a portable architecture definition.

Current Recipes

• REST service with H2
• REST service with PostgreSQL
• Two services communicating through REST

The goal is not to cover every possible architecture, but to make common setups quick and easy.

Future Roadmap

• Additional architecture recipes
• Enhanced sharing of blueprints
• Better visualization of service interactions

The long‑term vision is to make architecture definition the starting point of backend development.

Open Source

Archify is open source and available on GitHub. You can try the live demo at .

If you build Spring Boot services regularly, your feedback is welcome. The project is still early, but the aim is simple: make it easier to turn architecture ideas into working backend code.