Ahead Of Time (AOT) compilation build tools such as those provided by GraalVM's native-image can require some configuration when using protobuf. Protobuf for the JVM uses reflection and some of its target classes are not possible to determine in advance. Historically, there were good reasons to use reflection based on APIs that were published effectively requiring them, and this situation is unlikely to change.
The Lite version of protobuf for the JVM avoids reflection and may be better suited for use with AOT compilation tooling. This Lite version was originally targeted for use on Android which has similar AOT compilation goals as GraalVM's native-image tool.
This section addresses GraalVM‘s native-image configuration specifically as this AOT compilation tool due to its popularity. The native-image tool can be configured with respect to: the Java Native Interface (JNI), http proxying, reflection, and other resources. While these considerations can be manually declared as JSON files, we recommend that a JVM application is exercised along with the assisted configuration agent. The agent will generate files that you can then subsequently point at when invoking native-image. We recommend that the generated files are retained with a project’s source code.