Spring Boot triggers full restart instead of reload on changes over static files

Question

In my Spring Boot project I have the following structure:

- src
  - main
    - java
    - resources
      - static
        - css
        - js
        - img
    -         


        

Answer 1

Did you also read the chapter for the "LiveReload"? You'll need to make sure that your LiveReload Server is started from the SpringBoot-Devtools. You can also use the browser plugin from LiveReload.com. Or you could use the Plugin from the Chrome Web Store. See Chapter LiveReload for more details.

Answer 2

Finally found the solution. It was much simpler than I thought.

Since I'm using war packaging I can use webapp's default behaviour. Everything under source folders trigger a restart, but resources under webapp are fetched at runtime, so there is no need to reload anything.

I just placed my static content under /webapp/static and then added the resource handler:

@Configuration
public class MvcConfig implements WebMvcConfigurer {
    @Override
    public void addResourceHandlers(ResourceHandlerRegistry registry) {
        registry.addResourceHandler("/static/**").addResourceLocations("/static/"); 
    }
}

Just don't use the default Spring Boot placement for statics (basically anything under resources) and you'll be fine.