What does @GetMapping do, and when would you use plain @RequestMapping instead?

@GetMapping is shorthand for @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET) — it maps HTTP GET requests to a handler method and is the standard choice for any read/retrieval endpoint. You'd fall back to plain @RequestMapping when a single handler needs to respond to multiple HTTP methods at once, or when matching on more complex conditions (headers, content negotiation) that the shorthand annotations don't directly expose.