Spring Data JPA Auditing

Support teams ask "when was this order created?", "who changed this price?". Almost every production table has four columns: created_at, updated_at, created_by, updated_by. Spring Data fills them for you, so no service method can forget.

@Configuration
@EnableJpaAuditing                      // activates AuditingEntityListener support
public class JpaConfig { }

@Entity
@Table(name = "products")
@EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
public class Product {

    @Id @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY)
    private Long id;
    private String name;
    private BigDecimal price;

    @CreatedDate
    @Column(nullable = false, updatable = false)
    private Instant createdAt;

    @LastModifiedDate
    @Column(nullable = false)
    private Instant updatedAt;
}

Product p = productRepository.save(new Product("Cotton Kurta", new BigDecimal("799")));
// later, in another transaction
p.setPrice(new BigDecimal("699"));

DEBUG org.hibernate.SQL : insert into products (created_at,name,price,updated_at) values (?,?,?,?)
TRACE org.hibernate.orm.jdbc.bind : binding parameter (1:TIMESTAMP_UTC) <- [2026-03-14T04:45:10.112Z]
TRACE org.hibernate.orm.jdbc.bind : binding parameter (4:TIMESTAMP_UTC) <- [2026-03-14T04:45:10.112Z]
DEBUG org.hibernate.SQL : update products set name=?,price=?,updated_at=? where id=?
TRACE org.hibernate.orm.jdbc.bind : binding parameter (3:TIMESTAMP_UTC) <- [2026-03-15T09:02:44.530Z]

Without Spring Data, Hibernate offers @CreationTimestamp and @UpdateTimestamp (package org.hibernate.annotations). They need no listener and no @EnableJpaAuditing, but cannot fill "created by".

@CreationTimestamp
@Column(updatable = false)
private Instant createdAt;

@UpdateTimestamp
private Instant updatedAt;