Ship database changes with Flyway + Spring Boot in 5 baby-steps.

🔸 WHAT IS FLYWAY?

Flyway is a database migration tool that versions schema changes alongside your application code.

It executes pending migrations in order and records their versions, checksums and results in flyway_schema_history.

🔸 TLDR

Add Flyway, configure the database, place versioned SQL files in db/migration, then start the application.

Spring Boot automatically runs the pending migrations during startup.

1️⃣ ADD THE DEPENDENCIES

The starter provides Spring Boot integration. PostgreSQL also requires its Flyway database module and JDBC driver.

2️⃣ CONFIGURE THE DATABASE

Use Flyway to change the schema and Hibernate to validate it. Avoid ddl-auto: update, which would let Hibernate modify the database outside your migration history.

3️⃣ CREATE THE FIRST MIGRATION

Flyway recognises the V1__description.sql convention. At startup, it executes this script once and records its checksum.

4️⃣ EVOLVE THE SCHEMA

Never rewrite an already-deployed V1. Create a new migration so every environment follows the same reproducible history.

5️⃣ START AND VERIFY

Spring Boot calls Flyway during startup. Flyway finds V1 and V2, applies only the pending migrations and then allows the application to continue.

🔸 WHAT CHANGED IN FLYWAY 13.0?

Flyway 13.0.0, released July 20, 2026, added:

▪️ A development-time MCP server for AI agents 🤖

▪️ IDs for individual drift differences 🎯

▪️ Oracle online-index configuration support 🏛️

▪️ Clearer Docker provisioner and SQL errors 🔎

▪️ A security-related Jackson upgrade 🔐

#Flyway #SpringBoot #Java #PostgreSQL #DatabaseMigrations #SQL #DevOps #BackendDevelopment

Go further with Java certification:

Java👇

https://bit.ly/javaOCP

Spring👇

https://bit.ly/2v7222

SpringBook👇

https://bit.ly/springtify

JavaBook👇

https://bit.ly/jroadmap