Hibernate: @NaturalId expresses a business key

It documents the real identifier and gives you a cached lookup that is not the primary key.

Code

@Entity
class Product {
    @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;

    @NaturalId
    String sku;
}

Product p = session.byNaturalId(Product.class).using("sku", "JCH-01").load();

Output

The natural-id lookup is cached separately,
so repeated sku lookups do not re-query.

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Published 2026-08-11