Lombok & Boilerplate Reduction

What Lombok Does

Generates getters, setters, constructors, equals/hashCode, toString, and builders at compile time via annotation processing — no runtime cost, but requires IDE plugin support and annotation processing enabled in the build.

@Getter
@Setter
@NoArgsConstructor
@AllArgsConstructor
@Entity
public class Transaction {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private Long id;
    private String description;
    private BigDecimal amount;
}

Common Annotations

Constructor Injection with Lombok

@Service
@RequiredArgsConstructor
public class TransactionService {
    private final TransactionRepository repository;
    private final CategoryService categoryService;
    // constructor generated automatically — no boilerplate
}

This is the most common real-world Lombok + DI pattern.

Caution: @Data on JPA Entities

Avoid @Data on entities — its generated equals/hashCode can include lazy-loaded relations (triggering unwanted queries or LazyInitializationException) and its toString can do the same. Prefer:

@Getter
@Setter
@NoArgsConstructor
@Entity
public class Transaction {
    @EqualsAndHashCode.Include
    @Id
    private Long id;
    // ...
}

Only include the @Id in equals/hashCode for entities — two entities with the same ID are the same row, regardless of other field values.

@Builder for DTOs

@Builder
public record TransactionResponse(Long id, String description, BigDecimal amount) {}

Handy for tests where you construct many similar objects with a few fields varying per test case.

Is Lombok "Worth It"?

Trade-off: less boilerplate vs an extra build-time dependency and slightly "magic" generated code that's invisible in the source file. Very standard in industry Spring Boot projects — worth learning, but understand what each annotation expands to rather than treating it as a black box.