Springfox defines a set default response messages that are applied to all API controllers by default. This includes e.g. 201 - Created and 204 - No Content, as well as several 40x responses. There might be cases, in which the default response messages don't apply for your API. You have to build-in possibilities to deal with this:

• You can turn of the default response message and define your own using the @ApiResponses annotation.
• You can define your own response messages globally

Turn of default response messages

docket.useDefaultResponseMessages(false);

You can now set your individual response messages on a per-controller level. E.g.

 @ApiResponses(value = {
        @ApiResponse(code=400, message = "This is a bad request, please stick to the API description", response = RestApiExceptionModel.class),
        @ApiResponse(code=401, message = "Your request cannot be authorized.", response = RestApiExceptionModel.class)
 })

Set your own default response messages

ModelRef errorModel = new ModelRef("RestApiExceptionModel");
List<ResponseMessage> responseMessages = Arrays.asList(
        new ResponseMessageBuilder().code(401).message("Unauthorized").responseModel(errorModel).build(),
        new ResponseMessageBuilder().code(403).message("Forbidden").responseModel(errorModel).build(),
        new ResponseMessageBuilder().code(404).message("NotFound").responseModel(errorModel).build());

docket.globalResponseMessage(RequestMethod.POST, responseMessages)
        .globalResponseMessage(RequestMethod.PUT, responseMessages)
        .globalResponseMessage(RequestMethod.GET, responseMessages)
        .globalResponseMessage(RequestMethod.DELETE, responseMessages);

1. Get springfox into your application by using Maven or Gradle
2. Create a new Docket bean in your application and configure it
3. Document your API according to your needs
4. Launch your application and see your achieved results

#1 Getting springfox with Maven

Add the dependencies for swagger2 and swagger-ui in your pom.xml

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.springfox</groupId>
    <artifactId>springfox-swagger2</artifactId>
    <version>2.6.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.springfox</groupId>
    <artifactId>springfox-swagger-ui</artifactId>
    <version>2.6.0</version>
</dependency>

#2 Configure your application to use swagger

Add the annotation @EnableSwagger2 to your @SpringBootApplication annotated main class and create a swagger Docket bean within this (or any other) configuration class.

@Bean
public Docket api() {                
    return new Docket(DocumentationType.SWAGGER_2)          
      .select()                                       
      .apis(RequestHandlerSelectors.any())
      .paths(PathSelectors.any())                     
      .build();
}

This configuration will generate an API documentation over all spring controllers within your application. If you need to limit the API documentation generation to certain controllers you can choose between various RequestHandlerSelectors. E.g. you can generate your API documentation based on your package structure using RequestHandlerSelectors.basePackage("your.package.structure") or based specific classes that you've annotated using RequestHandlerSelectors.withClassAnnotation(Api.class).

#3 Document your API

Use the annotations as described in the documentation, to enhance your controller classes and methods with additional information. To describe the general information of your api, like general title, description or the version, make use of the ApiInfoBuilder() within your Docket bean.

Example for the metadata definition using ApiInfoBuilder:

// Within your configuration class
public static ApiInfo metadata(){
    return new ApiInfoBuilder()
            .title("Your Title")
            .description("Your Description")
            .version("1.x")
            .build();
}

// Within your method that definies the Docket bean...
docket.apiInfo(metadata());