The "autoGenerateSchema" property on the JpaSource is translated into the "hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" configuration property. Currently, the default value is "validate" (which our JavaDoc says should be used in production), but really for production this Hibernate property should not really be set at all, since in production the database schema should be managed by a DB admin. Therefore, the JavaDoc (and Reference Guide) need to be updated to reflect the correct production setting. And since we probably shouldn't change the default value for the "autoGenerateSchema" property, we should probably update the documentation to recommend a non-default value for production.

The JpaSource should make it possible to configure the "autoGenerateSchema" so that the underlying "hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" configuration property is not used. For example, maybe a value of "off" (or "disabled" or "production"?) would mean the JpaSource doesn't set the Hibernate configuration property. I believe it currently is possible that an empty string will result in this property not being seet, but that's really an unnatural value.