Spring Batch 6.0 is a major release that comes with several new features, enhancements, and bug fixes. This release introduces a number of API breaking changes and deprecations. Please refer to the migration guide for the full list of changes.

⭐ New features

• Migrate to JSpecify annotations for nullability constraints #4673
• Add API to recover failed job executions #4876
• Add support for observability with the Java Flight Recorder #4972
• Add ability to externally stop any kind of step #4965
• Revisit the concurrency model #4955
• Use contextual lambdas to configure batch artefacts #4818
• Add support for local chunking #5021
• Add support for remote step executions #5024
• Add shutdown hook to gracefully stop job executions on sigterm #5028
• Add support for Jackson 3 #4842
• Support SEDA with Spring Integration MessageChannels #4719
• Introduce a modern command line batch operator #4899
• Add ability to use bean names for jobs and steps #4858
• Make MapJobRegistry smart enough to auto register jobs defined in the application context #4855
• Make MessageChannelPartitionHandler usable with any job repository implementations #4917
• Add optimistic locking for meta-data deletion #4793
• Make Job interface a functional interface #4966
• Make Step interface a functional interface #4976
• Add StepExecution parameter to StoppableTasklet.stop() #4703
• Add ability to configure Mongo sequence incrementers #5018
• Remove usage of Micrometer's global static meter registry #4968
• Add support for delete operations in MongoDB DAOs #5060
• Use existing ItemWriter with CompositeItemWriter expecting different item types #4735
• Automatically register ItemHandler as StepListener instead of only StepExecutionListener in ChunkOrientedStepBuilder #5087

🚀 Enhancements

• Improve experience when configuring an alternative JobRepository #4718
• Improve performance of JdbcStepExecutionDao::getStepExecution #4799
• Improve update sql for optimistic locking #4792
• Improve JobOperator API by using domain types instead of primitive types #4845
• Improve JobOperator by reducing its scope to job operations only #4833
• Core API simplification #4847
• Move core APIs in dedicated packages #4877
• Move listener APIs under core.listener package #4867
• Move core.explore package under core.repository #4827
• Move core partitioning APIs under org.springframework.batch.core.partition #4849
• Move DAOs implementations to separate packages #4848
• Remove unnecessary generic from JobKeyGenerator interface #4886
• Remove usage of JobFactory in `JobRegistry`` #4854
• Remove dependency to JobExplorer in SimpleJobOperator #4817
• Remove JobExplorer bean registration from the default batch configuration #4825
• Remove unnecessary reflection in RemoteChunkHandlerFactoryBean #4839
• Rename SimpleJobOperator to TaskExecutorJobOperator #4834
• Rename JobRepositoryFactoryBean to JdbcJobRepositoryFactoryBean #4829
• FlatFileItemReaderBuilder : raise check exception on build #4757
• Make JobOperator extend JobLauncher #4832
• Make JobRepository extend JobExplorer #4824
• Redundant methods in JobExplorer/JobInstanceDao APIs #4821
• Introduce ErrorProne, fix compiler warnings #4807
• Add Redis integration tests #4892
• Fail test if no exception is thrown in testErrorMessageWhenNoLineTokenizerWasProvided #4883
• Refactor AOT proxy hints for better type safety #4881
• Refactor ExitStatus#isRunning for type-safety #4783
• Mark argument to ExitStatus#equals as nullable #4823
• Use typesafe variant of ctx::getBean instead #4803
• Use jdbcTemplate.queryForStream().findFirst() where appropriate #4802
• Reuse existing SQL where feasible #4801
• Revisit the chunk-oriented processing model implementation #3950
• Allow a StepInterruptionPolicy to be injected through the step builder #1641
• Make JobRegistry optional in the default batch configuration #4971
• Make transaction manager optional in JobOperatorFactoryBean #4970
• Make transaction manager optional in Tasklet and Chunk-Oriented steps #4974
• Segregate StepLocator methods in a sub interface #5015
• Move infrastructure APIs under a specific package #5014
• Revisit exception declaration in public APIs #5013
• Move built-in job parameter incrementers to the org.springframework.batch.core.job.parameters package #5011
• Broken encapsulation of job parameter attributes #5010
• Incorrect nullability definition in public APIs input #4989
• Update retrieval methods with clear nullability semantics #4988
• Incorrect default constructor in AbstractStep #4984
• Make domain model entities immutable #1870
• Improve performance of JdbcStepExecutionDao::getLastStepExecution #4798
• Optimize step executions counting in MongoStepExecutionDao #5061
• Change configuration log level to debug #5055
• Remove unused id from persistence domain object #5054
• Missing comma in StepExecution#getSummary #5025
• Improve performance of DefaultFieldSet.indexOf() method #4930
• Improve MessageChannelPartitionHandler::receiveReplies #4776
• CommandLineJobOperator improve state validation for restart/abandon and enhance logging #5057
• Inaccurate error message when using ResourcelessJobRepository with a partitioned step #4732
• SQL Server DDL for metadata tables should use NVARCHAR to prevent performance degradation and deadlocks from implicit conversion #5064
• Potential parameter key collision in .getUniqueJobParameters() #5088

🐞 Bug fixes

• RecordFieldExtractor in FlatFileItemWriterBuilder doesn't reflect names() setting #4916
• Incorrect warning when starting a job with an empty parameters set #4914
• Incorrect handling of job parameters when using a JobParametersIncrementer #4910
• Write Skip Count Not Updated in Chunk Processing #4514
• Build failure with GraalVM 24 #4937
• Incorrect step execution id generation in ResourcelessJobRepository #4975
• Conflicting info in @AfterChunk/@BeforeChunk annotation javadoc to current implementation #4961
• RecordFieldSetMapper fails with Record without components #4900
• JsonObjectReader fails to read JSON array format due to Jackson 3.0 FAIL_ON_TRAILING_TOKENS default change #5047
• ChunkOrientedStep: Unnecessary ItemReader.read() calls when chunk size exceeds item count #5048
• JobParameter constructor validates wrong parameter (value instead of name) #5049
• Incorrect error message in JobOperatorTestUtils constructor #5051
• ChunkOrientedStepBuilder throws IllegalArgumentException when retry() is used(configured) without retryLimit() #5068
• ChunkOrientedStepBuilder throws IllegalArgumentException when skip() is used(configured) without skipLimit() #5069
• MongoJobExecutionDao doesn't handle temporal job parameter types correctly #5063
• Incorrect Step status in StepExecutionListener#afterStep #4362
• Cannot deserialize TopicPartition from JobRepository #3797
• Incorrect restart behaviour with no identifying job parameters #4755
• Incorrect ordering when retrieving job executions with JobExecutionDao #5062
• Errors are not propagated from job execution #808
• Spring batch terminate in started status after sigterm #4023
• Jdbc Hibernate Connection closed prematurly when launching a Job #5006
• OptimisticLockingFailureException caused by jobExecutionDao.updateJobExecution(jobExecution) #5022
• Missing GraalVM native image hints for StepContext.getJobParameters() #5041
• StepBuilder(JobRepository) fails due to timing mismatch between constructor validation and BeanNameAware #5027
• RecursiveCollectionLineAggregator.aggregate() fails on empty collection input #5023
• Incorrect retrieval of last step execution with MongoDB #4896
• Fix potential NPE in JdbcJobExecutionDao #5044
• Error in the metrics registration with a meter registry customization #4759
• Activation of Actuator & Prometheus rise a WARN in the log due to bad configuration #4753
• ChunkOrientedStepBuilder: Default SkipPolicy should be NeverSkipItemSkipPolicy when only retry is configured (not AlwaysSkipItemSkipPolicy) #5077
• ChunkOrientedStepBuilder: All Throwables (including Errors) are retried when only retryLimit() is configured without retry() #5078
• ChunkOrientedStep does not throw exception when skipPolicy.shouldSkip() returns false #5079
• ChunkOrientedStepBuilder does not apply StepBuilderHelper properties (allowStartIfComplete, startLimit, stepExecutionListeners) #5093
• ChunkOrientedStep: Retry exhausted in ItemWriter always triggers Chunk Scanning regardless of skip eligibility #5091
• JobLauncherTestUtils throws an NPE at getJobLauncher() in Batch 6 RC2 #5090

📖 Documentation updates

• Documentation for disabling spring batch metrics is incomplete #4800
• Polish code block style and fix typo in whatsnew.adoc #4901
• Fix javadoc in JdbcCursorItemReaderBuilder #4838
• Correct comment in RemoteChunkingJobFunctionalTests #4822
• Include Javadocs as part of Antora docs
• FaultTolerantStepBuilder#skipLimit Javadoc is misleading with custom skipPolicy #4963
• Fix grammar error in testing documentation #4979
• Improve javadoc of JobInstanceDao#getJobNames method #5043
• Elaborate usage of PlatformTransactionManager #4787
• Document requirements of CommandLineJobOperator in the reference docs #5026
• Clarify MongoDB job repository configuration in reference documentation #4859
• Unclear reference to example about job parameters in reference documentation #4791

🆙 Dependency Upgrades

• Spring Framework: 7.0.0
• Spring Integration: 7.0.0
• Spring AMQP: 4.0.0
• Spring Kafka: 4.0.0
• Spring Data: 4.0.0
• Spring Ldap: 4.0.0
• Micrometer: 1.16.0

🔨 Tasks

• Add integration tests for DDL migration scripts #4289
• Replace usage of JobExplorer with JobRepository in RemoteStepExecutionAggregator #4928
• Replace usage of JobExplorer with JobRepository in SystemCommandTasklet #4927
• Replace usage of JobLauncher with JobOperator in JobLaunchingGateway and JobLaunchingMessageHandler #4924
• Replace usage of JobLauncher with JobOperator in JobStep #4923
• Replace usage of JobExplorer with JobRepository in StepExecutionRequestHandler #4918
• Rename JobLauncherTestUtils to JobOperatorTestUtils #4920
• Rename JobExplorerFactoryBean to JdbcJobExplorerFactoryBean #4846
• Deprecate StepRunner #4921
• Deprecate modular job configuration through EnableBatchProcessing #4866
• Remove usage of JobExplorer in BatchIntegrationConfiguration #4919
• Remove deprecated APIs scheduled for removal in v6 #4819
• Update GraalVM runtime hints #4844
• Deprecate JobRepository#getStepExecution(long jobExecutionId, long stepExecutionId) #5007
• Deprecate the batch XML namespace #4843
• Deprecate JUnit 4 support #4816
• Update Micrometer's Prometheus support to version 1.x #4689

❤️ Contributors

Many thanks to all contributors who made this release possible!

@darth-raijin, @itis821, @jbotuck, @martinfrancois, @noojung, @patrickwinti, @sieunie, @sjiwon, @therepanic, @thelightway24, @ch200203, @monnetchr, @Chienlin1014, @lucas-gautier, @PENEKhun, @kyb4312.

A special thanks to @scordio , @quaff and @KILL9-NO-MERCY for their amazing feedback and numerous contributions 🙏