how to start a hilla project on an arleady finished vaadin Project

Question

Pretty much the title, i have a Vaadin-SpringBoot project already fit with the frontend in vaadin.
My goal is to install Hilla and try React or Lit.
how could i do that?

I have looked in the documentation all i could found is how to start a Hilla project from scratch that would not do because we already have all the spring application up and running, we just want to experiment with the frontEnd a little.

is it possibile?

This is my pom so far: `

    <!-- Main Maven repository -->
    <repository>
        <id>central</id>
        <url>https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2</url>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </repository>
    <repository>
        <id>vaadin-prereleases</id>
        <url>
            https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-prereleases/
        </url>
    </repository>
    <!-- Repository used by many Vaadin add-ons -->
    <repository>
        <id>Vaadin Directory</id>
        <url>https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-addons</url>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </repository>
</repositories>

<pluginRepositories>
    <!-- The order of definitions matters. Explicitly defining central here to make sure it has the highest priority. -->
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>central</id>
        <url>https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2</url>
        <snapshots>
            <enabled>false</enabled>
        </snapshots>
    </pluginRepository>
    <pluginRepository>
        <id>vaadin-prereleases</id>
        <url>
            https://maven.vaadin.com/vaadin-prereleases/
        </url>
    </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
            <artifactId>vaadin-bom</artifactId>
            <version>${vaadin.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
        <!-- Replace artifactId with vaadin-core to use only free components -->
        <artifactId>vaadin</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
        <artifactId>vaadin-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    
    <!-- ###################### DRIVER ####################### -->
    
    <!--
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
        <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>
    -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
        <version>${mysql5.version}</version>
        <!--<scope>runtime</scope>-->
    </dependency>   
    
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
        <artifactId>mssql-jdbc</artifactId>
        <version>${sqlserver.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    
    <!-- ############################################## -->
    <!-- TOMCAT BOOT -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    
    <!-- spring framework -->
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jdbc</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-validation</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
        <optional>true</optional>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.vaadin</groupId>
        <artifactId>vaadin-testbench</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <!-- Include JUnit 4 support for TestBench and others -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.vintage</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-vintage-engine</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
                <artifactId>hamcrest-core</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
        <artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
        <version>5.1.1</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>`

Thanks for the time you given me i really need some help

Answer 1

If you have a fairly recent Vaadin application you should be able to add Hilla dependencies in your pom.xml.

Add the version into <properties> section. This helps you to change the version later:

<hilla.version>2.1.0</hilla.version>

In the <dependencyManagement> section add the "bill of material":

<dependency>
    <groupId>dev.hilla</groupId>
    <artifactId>hilla-bom</artifactId>
    <version>${hilla.version}</version>
    <type>pom</type>
    <scope>import</scope>
</dependency>

Now you can include actual Hilla dependency in <dependencies> using:

<dependency>
    <groupId>dev.hilla</groupId>
    <artifactId>hilla</artifactId>
</dependency>

Last thing is to add the plugin into <build> > <plugins> section:

<plugin>
    <groupId>dev.hilla</groupId>
    <artifactId>hilla-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>${hilla.version}</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>prepare-frontend</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Here is an example from start.vaadin.com you can use for a starting point, if you want to starts from scratch or browse the source code.