GraalVM native image: reflection and dynamic proxies must be declared

Compiling a Spring Boot application to a GraalVM native executable fails at runtime with ClassNotFoundException or causes silent behavior differences because native image compilation does not support runtime reflection, dynamic class loading, or JDK proxies unless they are explicitly declared.

Spring Boot 3.x has built-in GraalVM support via Ahead-of-Time (AOT) processing:

# Build native image with Maven
./mvnw -Pnative native:compile

# Or with Gradle
./gradlew nativeCompile

Spring's AOT engine generates reflection hints automatically for Spring-managed beans. For libraries that use reflection outside of Spring's awareness, register hints manually:

@Configuration
@ImportRuntimeHints(MyRuntimeHints.class)
public class AppConfig {}

class MyRuntimeHints implements RuntimeHintsRegistrar {
    @Override
    public void registerHints(RuntimeHints hints, ClassLoader classLoader) {
        hints.reflection().registerType(MyDto.class,
            MemberCategory.INVOKE_DECLARED_CONSTRUCTORS,
            MemberCategory.DECLARED_FIELDS);
        hints.proxies().registerJdkProxy(MyInterface.class);
    }
}

Test hint completeness with the native test task which runs tests inside the native executable.

GraalVM performs static analysis of all code reachable from the main entry point at compile time. Code paths discovered only at runtime (via reflection) are not included in the native executable unless declared in configuration metadata.