Add missing WebClient Spring Boot Starter (Spring Boot 4)

[ghusta]

What problem are you trying to solve?

Add Spring Boot starter spring-boot-starter-webclient, provided in a separate starter as of Spring Boot 4.
See details here:

• https://spring.io/blog/2025/09/30/the-state-of-http-clients-in-spring#new-spring-boot-starters

With Spring Boot 4.0, applications can now use the “org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-webclient” or “org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-restclient” to express the need for an HTTP client.

Steps

• add dependency spring-boot-starter-webclient if org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.WebClient is used in project
• add dependency spring-boot-starter-webclient-test if org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.WebClient is used in project
• remove dependency reactor-test (dependency of spring-boot-starter-webclient-test)
• rename some classes from org.springframework.boot.web.reactive.function.client to org.springframework.boot.webclient

Quick start

A first recipe that I tested. Second part is in its own recipe to ease testing.
Maybe some classes are missing from the package renaming.

---
type: specs.openrewrite.org/v1beta/recipe
name: org.openrewrite.java.spring.boot4.AddWebClientStarter
displayName: Add missing WebClient Spring Boot Starter
description: >-
  Add Spring Boot starter `spring-boot-starter-webclient`, provided in a separate starter as of Spring Boot 4.
  See details about [new Spring Boot Starters](https://spring.io/blog/2025/09/30/the-state-of-http-clients-in-spring#new-spring-boot-starters).
tags:
  - spring
  - boot
recipeList:
  - org.openrewrite.java.dependencies.AddDependency:
      groupId: org.springframework.boot
      artifactId: spring-boot-starter-webclient
      scope: compile
      acceptTransitive: false
      onlyIfUsing: "org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.WebClient"
  - org.openrewrite.java.dependencies.AddDependency:
      groupId: org.springframework.boot
      artifactId: spring-boot-starter-webclient-test
      scope: test
      acceptTransitive: false
      onlyIfUsing: "org.springframework.web.reactive.function.client.WebClient"
  # remove reactor-test, dependency of spring-boot-starter-webclient-test
  - org.openrewrite.java.dependencies.RemoveDependency:
      groupId: io.projectreactor
      artifactId: reactor-test
      scope: test
      configuration: testImplementation
  - org.openrewrite.java.spring.boot4.WebClientPackageRenaming
---
type: specs.openrewrite.org/v1beta/recipe
name: org.openrewrite.java.spring.boot4.WebClientPackageRenaming
displayName: Package name change in `spring-boot-webclient`
description: >-
  Package name change in `spring-boot-webclient`.
tags:
  - spring
  - boot
recipeList:
  - org.openrewrite.java.ChangePackage:
      oldPackageName: org.springframework.boot.web.reactive.function.client
      newPackageName: org.springframework.boot.webclient
      recursive: true
  - org.openrewrite.java.ChangePackage:
      oldPackageName: org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.reactive.function.client
      newPackageName: org.springframework.boot.webclient.autoconfigure
      recursive: true

Any additional context

References:

• https://spring.io/blog/2025/09/30/the-state-of-http-clients-in-spring#new-spring-boot-starters

Related:

• Add missing RestClient Spring Boot Starter (Spring Boot 4) #871
• feat: Adopt an initial few modular Spring Boot 4.0 starters #860

Are you interested in [contributing this recipe to OpenRewrite]

OK

[ghusta]

Closing this issue as this also duplicates #860

[murdos]

@ghusta: WebClient Spring Boot Starter is not handled in #860.
#860 is a first start for some common modules, but is not exhaustive.
I've not handled webclient since I'm not familiar with it.

[ghusta]

Oops sorry, I was tired 😅
Well it's rather similar to RestClient.

This is the dependency named "Reactive HTTP Client Spring Boot integration for WebClient to make reactive HTTP requests" in https://start.spring.io/

[Swarna7414]

hay can you please assign this task to me ?

[timtebeek]

Sure as soon as there is a draft pull request.