Major changes in dependency landscape: spring 7, jackson 3, junit 6

[bbortt]

it seems citrus is currently not spring 7 compatible, mainly regarding web dependencies. I think maintaining compatibility for multiple versions (namely 6 and 7) will be extremely hard to manage.

I've tried with the new openapi citrus action generator and run into Nested exception is: Class org.springframework.http.HttpHeaders does not implement the requested interface org.springframework.util.MultiValueMap. the error seems to originate from citrus-http dependening on spring-web for the RestTemplate.

• https://github.com/citrusframework/citrus/blob/main/endpoints/citrus-http/src/main/java/org/citrusframework/http/client/HttpClient.java#L129
• https://github.com/citrusframework/citrus/blob/main/endpoints/citrus-http/pom.xml#L83

one way to resolve this would probably be to get rid of this dependency in the first place. still not an easy task.

jackson 3 is also out. this might be the easiest replacement/upgrade.

and junit 6, of course. I think junit 6 should be introduced in a new module, also not that hard.

thoughts @christophd?

[christophd]

I think maintaining compatibility for multiple versions (namely 6 and 7) will be extremely hard to manage.

Absolutely! I think many projects and users will stay on Spring 6 for the time being and slowly upgrade.

So I think it would be a good time to introduce an LTS (Long Term Support) version of Citrus based on Spring 6 (e.g. Citrus 4.10.0) and keep releasing patches and minor updates on 4.10.x for Spring 6.

Maybe we should start a new major release Citrus 5.x with the update to Spring 7.

[bbortt]

that sounds reasonable. upgrades on the user end are hard to manage. I've tried with Spring-Boot 4 M1, M2 and finally 4.0.0 and it took me some days each time to upgrade 😓 therefore, I too think many projects and users will stay on Spring 6 for the time being.

I will start looking into it then, and create a new branch. I will try and submit the changes in reasonable pieces.

[christophd]

@bbort just a heads-up. I am also going to start working on these major upgrades. I suggest to do this on main branch so we update the main branch to 5.0.0-SNAPSHOT. I would cut a new branch 4.10.x before doing that so we can release another 4.x version of Citrus if needed.

So we can target a 1st Citrus 5.0.0 release and keep iterating and improving on that one. WDYT?

[christophd]

I also suggest to start compiling and building Citrus with Java 21 from 5.0.0 onwards.

[bbortt]

ok. I started with jackson, because I thought that would be the easiest. it's co-existence-ish 😉 here's my work: #1467

I ran out of time couple weeks ago and I just couldn't get the CI to pass. but I know that you worked a lot on that in the meantime, so maybe it's gonna run further now. I rebased it onto main and gonna let you have a look at it. next time windows I can see is next saturday 2026/03/14, so feel free to work on it in the meantime.

I also suggest to start compiling and building Citrus with Java 21 from 5.0.0 onwards.

me very personally I support this. but I know a lot of people that still run on JDK 17. on the other hand, 5.0.0 would probably to be expected in summer earliest, that gives them some time. with at least a milestone beforehand? and it can also be a leverage on those people to finally migrate to 21.

[christophd]

We can still provide 4.10.x patch releases (on request 😅) for folks using Java 17

[christophd]

@bbortt After releasing Citrus 4.10.0 I updated the main branch to 5.0.0-SNAPSHOT. So we can start working on the major updates for Spring, Jackson and JUnit on main branch.

I have created a 4.10.x branch that we can use for some more patch releases if required.

Regarding the minimum JDK version for 5.0.0 I think we should stay on Java 17 for now and see what path the other frameworks are going

[bbortt]

sure thing, that works. you want me to continue on the jackson branch?

[bbortt]

by the way, I have a project at hand where testing any SNAPSHOT's or RC's would come in handy. wanted to write Citrus tests for this project for a while, but couldn't since it builds on the latest and greatest frameworks.