Playframework route file: Separate Production routes from Dev routes

Is there a way in Play to annotate routes to inform that a certain section/group routes is only available in dev or prod mode

Well, this is not documented, so I am not sure if this is intentionally possible or not, but I have found a way to make this work. Please note however, as this is an undocumented feature, may mean it is unintended, and therefore may break in future versions of play.

You are able to achieve what you want using the following line in your routes file.

%{ if (play.mode.isDev()) }%

I created a test application with a couple of actions

public class Application extends Controller {

    public static void index() {
        render();
    }

    public static void noDev() {
        renderText("NoDev");
    }
    public static void noProd() {
        renderText("NoProd");
    }
}

I then added the following to my routes file

# Home page
GET     /                                       Application.index

# Ignore favicon requests
GET     /favicon.ico                            404
# Map static resources from the /app/public folder to the /public path
GET     /public/                                staticDir:public

%{ if (play.mode.isDev()) }%
GET     /route1                                 Application.noDev
GET     /route2                                 Application.noDev
GET     /route3                                 Application.noDev
*       /{controller}/{action}                  {controller}.{action}

%{ if (play.mode.isProd()) }%
GET     /route4                                 Application.noProd
GET     /route5                                 Application.noProd
GET     /route6                                 Application.noProd
*       /{controller}/{action}                  {controller}.{action}

So, you can see that using a simple if statement, it will execute the next group of routes only in that mode. The if statement will end when the next if statement is found.

If in Dev mode you try to access route4, you will not be able to access it, and you will see the RouteNotFound page showing that the available routes are those that you have defined for Dev only.