@jlle iiuc, compiling java is not in the scope of tools.deps -- may be something under here might be relevant? https://github.com/clojure/tools.deps.alpha/wiki/Tools#packaging

@jlle You can also call javac from the cli.

I found that badigeon / pbuilder are good for my use case

$ clj -Sdeps '{:aliases {:foo {:main-opts ["-e" "(ns,foo,(:require,[clojure.java.shell,:refer,[sh]])),(sh,\"javac\",\"Foo.java\"),(shutdown-agents)"]}}}' -A:foo

(it took me only 10 minutes to figure out the correct nesting and seancorfield-commas on the command line)