Explyt Spring
Explyt Spring brings Spring and Spring Boot tooling to IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition: bean navigation and inspections backed by your application's real context, a Spring debugger, a built-in HTTP client, Quarkus support, Kotlin-first checks, and Spring-aware MCP tools for AI agents.
Free for both commercial and non-commercial use, under the Apache License 2.0.
Settings → Plugins → Marketplace → search "Spring Explyt" → Install
What makes it different
Most Spring tooling reads your source code and guesses what the container will do. Explyt runs a lightweight version of your application and uses a javaagent to read the actual bean metadata at Spring startup.
That difference is why conditional beans, profile-activated beans, factory beans, and beans contributed by your dependencies resolve correctly instead of showing up as false "no bean found" warnings.
→ How Native Context Mode works
I am new here
- Install the plugin — Marketplace, custom repository, or manual ZIP.
- Quickstart — load beans, browse endpoints, and run your first request in about 15 minutes.
- Feature overview — the full map of what the plugin does.
I want to do a specific thing
| Task | Page |
|---|---|
| See the real beans and contexts in my app | Native Context Mode · Tool windows |
| Find and navigate my endpoints | Tool windows |
| Test an HTTP API without leaving the IDE | HTTP client |
| Inspect Spring context and transactions while debugging | Spring Debugger |
Generate boilerplate (web methods, JPA equals/hashCode) | Code generation |
| Give an AI agent real Spring context | MCP tools |
| Automate routine Spring work with AI | Explyt AI actions |
| Understand a warning the plugin shows me | Inspections |
| Work on a Quarkus project | Quarkus support |
| Check whether my IDE version is supported | Compatibility |
| Fix something that is not working | Troubleshooting |
Where Explyt Spring fits
Explyt is not a full IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate replacement. It is strongest when runtime bean accuracy, Kotlin Spring support, HTTP testing, and AI-agent workflows matter.
Legend: ✅ first-class · ◐ partial or setup-dependent · ❌ not available
| Capability | Explyt (CE) | IDEA Ultimate | VS Code + STS4 | IDEA CE alone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Native context mode — real bean metadata via javaagent | ✅ | ◐ static model; runtime via Actuator | ◐ needs running app + Actuator | ❌ |
| Spring Debugger — context tree, transactions, runtime properties | ✅ | ◐ | ◐ | ❌ |
Swagger UI HTTP client and .http/.rest runners | ✅ | ◐ | ◐ via extensions | ❌ |
| Spring-aware MCP tools for AI agents | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Kotlin-first Spring inspections | ✅ | ◐ | ◐ | ❌ |
Using IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate? Explyt Spring runs there too. If you see duplicated gutter icons or conflicting features, disable the bundled Spring plugin. See Compatibility.