Micronaut Event Handling and Publishing

Micronaut provides a lightweight and highly efficient event publishing mechanism. Events allow decoupled communication within your application, which is especially useful when different components need to respond to certain actions, such as user creation or order processing.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:

Define custom events
Publish events
Handle events using listeners
Use Maven for your project setup
Keep your app decoupled and clean

📦 Project Setup (Maven)

Ensure your pom.xml includes:

<groupId>io.micronaut</groupId>

<artifactId>micronaut-inject</artifactId>

</dependency>

</dependencies>

Set Micronaut and Java versions in properties:

<micronaut.version>4.2.0</micronaut.version>

<java.version>17</java.version>

</properties>

Use Micronaut CLI or Maven archetype to generate the project.

🔔 Step 1: Define a Custom Event

Create a POJO to hold event data.

package com.kscodes.micronaut.advanced;

public class UserCreatedEvent {

private final String username;

public UserCreatedEvent(String username) {

this.username = username;

}

public String getUsername() {

return username;

}

📢 Step 2: Publish an Event

Inject the ApplicationEventPublisher and publish the event.

package com.kscodes.micronaut.advanced;

import io.micronaut.context.event.ApplicationEventPublisher;

import jakarta.inject.Singleton;

@Singleton

public class UserService {

private final ApplicationEventPublisher<UserCreatedEvent> publisher;

public UserService(ApplicationEventPublisher<UserCreatedEvent> publisher) {

this.publisher = publisher;

}

public void registerUser(String username) {

// Logic to persist user

System.out.println("User registered: " + username);

// Publish the event

publisher.publishEvent(new UserCreatedEvent(username));

}

🎧 Step 3: Handle the Event with Listener

Create a listener using @EventListener.

package com.kscodes.micronaut.advanced;

import io.micronaut.runtime.event.annotation.EventListener;

import jakarta.inject.Singleton;

@Singleton

public class UserEventListener {

@EventListener

public void onUserCreated(UserCreatedEvent event) {

System.out.println("User creation event handled: " + event.getUsername());

// e.g., send welcome email

}

✅ Benefits of Using Events in Micronaut

Loose coupling: Your services don’t need to know about each other.
Testability: You can test listeners and services independently.
Clean architecture: Keeps business logic separate from side effects.

🧪 Bonus: Testing the Event Flow

package com.kscodes.micronaut.advanced;

import io.micronaut.context.ApplicationContext;

public class EventDemoApp {

public static void main(String[] args) {

try (ApplicationContext context = ApplicationContext.run()) {

UserService userService = context.getBean(UserService.class);

userService.registerUser("kscodes");

}

🔗 External References

🏁 Conclusion

Micronaut’s event system is clean, efficient, and perfect for decoupling components in modern microservices and monoliths alike. Whether you’re sending notifications, updating logs, or integrating third-party systems — events provide the perfect solution.

🔥 Tip: Use @Async on your listeners to make them non-blocking and improve performance.