The @EnableAutoConfiguration annotation only turns on Spring Boot's auto-configuration. It does not find your own beans (for example classes marked with @Component or @Controller). To find them, we must also add @ComponentScan. Read more about component scanning in Spring Core.

In real projects, most people use @SpringBootApplication instead. It already combines @SpringBootConfiguration, @EnableAutoConfiguration and @ComponentScan. This tutorial uses the two annotations separately so that you can see what each one does.

Example

Build Configuration

build.gradle

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd" xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>4.1.2</version>
  </parent>
  <groupId>com.logicbig.example</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-scanning</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <properties>
    <java.version>25</java.version>
  </properties>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>

plugins {
    java
    id("org.springframework.boot") version "4.1.2"
    id("io.spring.dependency-management") version "1.1.7"
}

println(">>> EXECUTING SCRIPT: build.gradle.kts (Kotlin DSL)")

group = "com.logicbig.example"
version = "1.0-SNAPSHOT"

java {
    sourceCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_25
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web")
}

plugins {
    id 'java'
    id 'org.springframework.boot' version '4.1.2'
    id 'io.spring.dependency-management' version '1.1.7'
}

println ">>> EXECUTING SCRIPT: build.gradle (Groovy DSL)"

group = 'com.logicbig.example'
version = '1.0-SNAPSHOT'

java {
    sourceCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_25
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web'
}

Java Classes

package com.logicbig.example;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

@Component
public class MyBean {
    public String getMessage () {
        return "a message from MyBean";
    }
}

package com.logicbig.example;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.ResponseBody;

@Controller
public class MyWebController {

    @Autowired
    private MyBean myBean;

    @RequestMapping("/")
    @ResponseBody
    public String theHandler () {
        return myBean.getMessage();
    }
}

package com.logicbig.example;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.EnableAutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.ComponentScan;

@ComponentScan
@EnableAutoConfiguration
public class EnabledAutoConfigScanExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(EnabledAutoConfigScanExample.class, args);
    }
}

Output

  .   ____          _            __ _ _
 /\\ / ___'_ __ _ _(_)_ __  __ _ \ \ \ \
( ( )\___ | '_ | '_| | '_ \/ _` | \ \ \ \
 \\/  ___)| |_)| | | | | || (_| |  ) ) ) )
  '  |____| .__|_| |_|_| |_\__, | / / / /
 =========|_|==============|___/=/_/_/_/

 :: Spring Boot ::                (v4.1.2)

2026-11-09T01:19:37.257-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] c.l.e.EnabledAutoConfigScanExample       : Starting EnabledAutoConfigScanExample using Java 25 with PID 30132 (D:\LogicBig\example-projects\spring-boot\spring-boot-scanning\target\classes started by joe2 in D:\LogicBig\example-projects\spring-boot\spring-boot-scanning)
2026-11-09T01:19:37.261-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] c.l.e.EnabledAutoConfigScanExample       : No active profile set, falling back to 1 default profile: "default"
2026-11-09T01:19:38.362-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] o.s.boot.tomcat.TomcatWebServer          : Tomcat initialized with port 8080 (http)
2026-11-09T01:19:38.382-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] o.apache.catalina.core.StandardService   : Starting service [Tomcat]
2026-11-09T01:19:38.382-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] o.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine    : Starting Servlet engine: [Apache Tomcat/11.0.27]
2026-11-09T01:19:38.448-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] b.w.c.s.WebApplicationContextInitializer : Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 1132 ms
2026-11-09T01:19:38.908-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] o.s.boot.tomcat.TomcatWebServer          : Tomcat started on port 8080 (http) with context path '/'
2026-11-09T01:19:38.917-06:00  INFO 30132 --- [           main] c.l.e.EnabledAutoConfigScanExample       : Started EnabledAutoConfigScanExample in 2.173 seconds (process running for 2.694)

If we do not set any packages with ComponentScan(basePackages) or ComponentScan(basePackageClasses), Spring scans the package of the class that declares the annotation, and all of its sub-packages.

In above example, we ran the main class directly from IntelliJ IDEA. Alternatively, you can execute it from the command line using your build tool:

• Maven: mvn spring-boot:run
• Gradle: gradle bootRun

$ curl -s "http://localhost:8080"
a message from MyBean