Do we need @Repository on Spring Data JPA repositories? — Spring Boot Interview Question

Short answer: No, you usually don’t need @Repository Spring Data JPA repositories. But there are a few important nuances to understand.

Why don’t we need @Repository

When we write this:

public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User, Long> {
}

Spring encounters a class annotated with @Repository during component scanning, it automatically detects it and creates a proxy around the class.

This proxy is then registered as a Spring-managed bean, allowing the framework to intercept method calls and apply cross-cutting concerns.

One of the most important of these is exception translation, where low-level persistence exceptions are converted into Spring’s consistent DataAccessException hierarchy.

As a result, repository implementations integrate seamlessly with Spring’s transaction management and error-handling model without requiring any additional boilerplate from the developer.

This happens because of @EnableJpaRepositories (implicitly enabled by Spring Boot).
So Spring adds the @Repository semantics behind the scenes automatically.

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