Running code after Spring Boot starts

I want to run code after my spring-boot app starts to monitor a directory for changes.

I have tried running a new thread but the @Autowired services have not been set at that point.

I have been able to find ApplicationPreparedEvent, which fires before the @Autowired annotations are set. Ideally I would like the event to fire once the application is ready to process http requests.

Is there a better event to use, or a better way of running code after the application is live in spring-boot?

Answer

Try:

@Configuration
@EnableAutoConfiguration
@ComponentScan
public class Application extends SpringBootServletInitializer {

    @SuppressWarnings("resource")
    public static void main(final String[] args) {
        ConfigurableApplicationContext context = SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);

        context.getBean(Table.class).fillWithTestdata(); // <-- here
    }
}