Spring Boot and Paketo Buildpacks make containerizing Java apps easy. But what really happens inside that build image?

In this talk, we’ll open the box and get our hands dirty extending the buildpack pipeline ourselves. You’ll see how Buildpacks detect, compile, and launch Spring Boot applications, and how to hook into that flow to add your own features.

As a real-world example, we’ll build something that’s missing today: an AOT (Ahead-of-Time) caching layer that cuts startup and image build time. We’ll inject it into a custom buildpack, rebuild the classic Spring Petclinic app, and benchmark the impact together.

This session is for developers who already use Spring Boot but want to understand, customize, and optimize the container build process. Expect a mix of live coding, real metrics, and a few “aha!” moments.

A practical journey into Paketo Buildpacks and Spring Boot’s build pipeline, featuring a live demo where we add our own AOT caching layer.