Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Spring Cloud Alibaba Hello World Project

Spring Cloud Alibaba is a subproject of Spring Cloud that provides an all‑in‑one solution for distributed service development. This guide demonstrates how to create a basic Spring Cloud Alibaba project using IntelliJ IDEA and Maven.

Creating the parent project – The parent pom manages version dependencies and sub‑modules. In IDEA select File → New Project → Maven without an archetype, then fill in the project name, GroupId, ArtifactId, and version.

The generated

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.fullstack</groupId>
    <artifactId>fs-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>pom</packaging>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.6.13</version>
        <relativePath/>
    </parent>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
        <spring.cloud.version>2021.0.5</spring.cloud.version>
        <spring.cloud.alibaba.version>2021.0.5.0</spring.cloud.alibaba.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencyManagement>
        <dependencies>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>com.alibaba.cloud</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-cloud-alibaba-dependencies</artifactId>
                <version>${spring.cloud.alibaba.version}</version>
                <type>pom</type>
                <scope>import</scope>
            </dependency>
            <dependency>
                <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-cloud-dependencies</artifactId>
                <version>${spring.cloud.version}</version>
                <type>pom</type>
                <scope>import</scope>
            </dependency>
        </dependencies>
    </dependencyManagement>
</project>

defines the parent pom.

Creating a sub‑module (fs‑user) – Right‑click the parent project, choose New → Module , select Maven, and confirm GroupId and ArtifactId. The sub‑module pom.xml looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <parent>
        <artifactId>fs-parent</artifactId>
        <groupId>com.fullstack</groupId>
        <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </parent>
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <artifactId>fs-user</artifactId>
    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                    <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

In the fs-user module, add a Spring Boot entry class:

package com.fullstack.commerce.user;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

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

Then create a simple controller to verify the setup:

package com.fullstack.commerce.user.controller;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("hello")
public class HelloController {
    @GetMapping("test")
    public String test() {
        return "Hello World";
    }
}

Run the application and open http://localhost:8080/hello/test in a browser; you should see the text Hello World , confirming that the basic Spring Cloud Alibaba project is successfully built.

The article concludes by noting that this simple Hello World project will serve as a foundation for future enhancements such as service registration, circuit breaking, and other cloud‑native features.