verified in jbosstools-3.3_stable_branch.aggregate-Update-2012-02-29_14-32-12-H100

Fixed with m2e-wtp 0.15.1's inclusion in the TP/requirements + latest JBossAS feature

marking as blocker for visbility - but all is ready for it, awaing m2e-wtp 0.15.0

If the JBoss server adapters can read/use the exclusion patterns stored as WTP component metadata, then we'll add the fix in m2e-wtp 0.15.0 : https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/MECLIPSEWTP-214

The agent is now up on github: https://github.com/jfuerth/client-local-class-hider

It's got a working maven build and everything. The resulting jar in the target directory includes all its own dependencies, so no issues with the JBoss module system. See the AS7 usage note in the README.md.

We will try and go for B (server knows how to exclude) as the medium term solution.

Jonathan - I think having the agent available would still be an interesting option until we have a better way.
Is the binary/source available somewhere ?

After hangout:

Root cause of failure is not CDI only, its anything that scans all classes for annotations - all classes that has a missing dependency will fail.

Remaining suggestions:
A) use the agent - but it won't work out of the box; we might be able to help that by adding a different launch action "Run GWT App on WTP Server".
How will this find the agent: have agent to be bundled with tooling.

B) make the server adapters listen to a project preference on what to exclude.

C) descriptors - but requires a patch against AS7.

I wouldn't say the creation of a dynamically configured deployment descriptor for AS7 is a zero-change proposition. Plus, it's likely going to require a patch to AS7 to expose WEB-INF/classes as a configurable resource-root.

Remember, the only reason we have to hide these classes from the webapp classloader is because we are working around a deficiency in Eclipse JDT/WTP. Users don't have to know how to run their app server to run with this agent, because the client classes the agent would be trying to hide are not in the .war they are deploying. The agent is only required as a workaround when launching from WTP, and this is something JBT can take care of when it launches the server.

The big advantage of the agent approach is that it will work with any app server. All you have to do is activate the agent in the VM.

So i'm still very interested hearing if the as7 descriptor works since that requires zero changes from user/tooling/errai side.

but that requires changing the way your app server is launched ?

That's not feasible IMO if that is the case. Users would need to know how to setup this agent.