trying to use a git coordinate on a repo that has .clj and .java source files, but trying to use a namespace from the dependency in a repl fails because the java source isn't being compiled

is there a way to handle this?

With deps, no

For projects that require a build step, you’ll need to use an artifact

tools.deps doesn't provide any built in way to run a build step (like calling javac), I think when it has come up in the past people have talked about calling out to javac, but I am not sure if anyone has wrapped that up into something re-usable

and I wouldn't hold my breath for something that solves that in the general case, because you would really need something that knows how to build arbitrary java projects, much easier to rely on built artifacts