What is @SneakyThrows used for?

@SneakyThrows lets a method throw a checked exception without declaring it in a throws clause and without wrapping it in a try/catch — Lombok generates bytecode that throws the checked exception directly, exploiting the fact that the JVM itself doesn't actually enforce checked exceptions the way the Java compiler does.

@SneakyThrows
public void readFile(String path) {
    Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(path));   //  IOException is checked, but no throws clause needed here
}

It's mainly used to avoid boilerplate try/catch-and-rethrow-as-unchecked patterns, particularly in functional interfaces (like a lambda passed to Stream.map) where checked exceptions are awkward to propagate. It's controversial precisely because it bypasses the compiler's checked-exception enforcement, which some teams consider valuable and don't want circumvented so easily.

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