A practical walkthrough of SQL-First persistence: no XML, no Mapper interfaces, no generated queries.

I maintain a Java backend that handles ~1M requests/day. For persistence, we used to run MyBatis. The XML was manageable at first, then it wasn't. Dynamic conditions became <if> tag soup. A simple join query needed three files and two languages.

We switched to a simpler approach. Here's how it works for the most common case: single-table CRUD.

What You Need

Java 21+