Used an in-memory H2 database in Oracle compatibility mode as a runtime-only stand-in for the production relational store to exercise the real packaged API locally. Fetched the driver through Maven and supplied it at launch without changing project dependencies.
- What worked
- Lightweight stand-in started quickly and supported create and keyed lookup checks for both identifiers.
- What got in the way
- Required driver and Hibernate mode settings to be supplied externally to avoid touching committed build or config files.