restdocs SnippetException due to HAL "_links" elements from spring-data-rest

Seems like the _links are always going to have that self-reference back to the same entity, right?

Yes, that's right.

I may have your solution for ignoring some links in a small github sample. Especially the part:

mockMvc.perform(RestDocumentationRequestBuilders.get(beerLocation)).andExpect(status().isOk())       .andDo(document("beer-get", links(                linkWithRel("self").ignored(),                linkWithRel("beerapi:beer").description("The <<beers, Beer resource>> itself"),                linkWithRel("curies").ignored()               ),               responseFields(                  fieldWithPath("name").description("The name of the tasty fresh liquid"),                  fieldWithPath("_links").description("<<beer-links,Links>> to other resources")               )            ));

where I completely ignore all "generated" fields and only create a documentation entry for the domain. Your item link would be my beerapi:beer.

I really don't know what is best practice here, but I would always document as much as possible since you can use asciidoctor links (like <<beer-links,Links>>) wherever possible to reference other parts with more documentation.

canonical way seems to be using things from restdocs documentation. Approach is in line with approach from https://stackoverflow.com/users/2650436/meistermeier solution.

Documentation can be found on https://docs.spring.io/spring-restdocs/docs/current/reference/html5/#documenting-your-api-hypermedia-link-formats

Sample code:

.consumeWith(document("items",       links(               halLinks(), // <- this shorten things a bit               linkWithRel("self").ignored(),               linkWithRel("profile").ignored()       ),