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.

:star: 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]

:rocket: 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]

:lady_beetle: 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

:hammer: 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

:heart: 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 🙏