What is the role of stereotype annotations in the Spring framework and why are they used?

In Spring, stereotype annotations are special annotations that denote the roles of components in an application and help Spring automatically detect and register beans in the context.

Main stereotype annotations:

• @Component — a general stereotype for any component.
• @Service — indicates a service layer, business logic.
• @Repository — indicates a data access layer, can also handle database exceptions.
• @Controller — indicates controllers in MVC applications.

Using these annotations simplifies configuration, allows Spring to automatically scan and manage classes, and also improves code readability and structure by explicitly showing the purpose of the class.