AuthKit-Lite is a free, open-source Spring Boot 4 authentication boilerplate for building secure backend APIs. It includes JWT access tokens, rotating refresh tokens, role-based authorization, optional WebAuthn passkeys, Flyway migrations, H2 and MySQL support, a browser API testing console, Postman workflows, and integration tests. Developers can clone and run it locally without Docker, an external database, or initial configuration.
I kept seeing the same authentication infrastructure being rebuilt across Spring Boot projects like - JWT handling, refresh tokens, authorization, migrations, and testing. AuthKit-Lite turns that repeated work into a focused starter that developers can clone, run immediately, understand, and adapt to their own applications without adopting an oversized full-stack template.