Why would any of the above require a change to the existing api? Sure we might want to allow an alternate implementation of the parsing of the class annotations using javassist in the MDR so AOP can use thi s mechanism but that is an implemetation detail. I don't see why bean validation would require any api change. If you mean adding bean validation as a new api to the reflect project, the addition of new optional api is NOT an api change. But bean validation is not really reflection so I'd prefer additional validation api or integration to be in its own project. i.e. it is something that sits above the reflection layer. Allowing non-public method invocations is just an internal change to do access checks similar to what I did for non-public fields, i.e. no api change. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4150291#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...