is there a workaround to https://dev.clojure.org/jira/browse/TDEPS-51 ?

I guess classpath-overrides is a possibility but that's a bit gross

Got it — thanks for the insights on lein compiles vs. clj, @alexmiller @mpenet !

If I'm making a library with tools.deps and it includes a Java file in it, how can I have that library be consumable in a way that allows people to import the java class? I know it the .java file needs to get compiled into a .class file at some point, which makes sense in an uberjar, but what about pulling in my library via git or :local/root? Would it work / is it advisiable to put the .class file into version control?

You can’t - you should use a build tool to create and deploy an artifact

I’ve been playing around with tools.deps using Maven as a build tool, and it’s been a good experience. clj -Spom -Srepro does mess with my pom.xml in undesirable ways, but testing is straightforward with the clojure-maven-plugin, and building uberjars with maven-shade-plugin works great. The most pleasant thing for me has been the speed relative to Leiningen, it’s much faster.

I’m not sure why I haven’t seen this set up more often in the wild

Fear of XML maybe?