Creating Java Interface With Annotations, Immediately Usable in REPL

I am trying to do a few things at once with a Clojure macro but it's not working. I want to either learn how to fix it or understand why it is impossible.

I want to:

1. Create a Java interface in Clojure
2. ... that is immediately usable from the REPL (i.e., no AOT/compilation step needed, and I am strenuously avoiding writing this in Java)
3. ... that has method- and parameter-level Java annotations
4. ... that also correctly provides the method-level annotation with a String array instead of a single String.

I want to do this because I am playing with Langchain4j and I want a way to define my LLM prompts inline, right in my REPL (CIDER). I don't want to store my prompts in a resource or Java file because (1) Clojure is my thinking language, so I want to keep as much in it as possible, and (2) I want to keep the maximal amount of context in front of me in one buffer so I don't have to pay the cognitize tax of frequently switching buffers.

I want to invoke my macro like this:

(defprompt foo
  "You are a {{role}} and need to solve this: {{problem-statement}}.")

I want that macro to basically translate into the code below. The code below works but requires that I store the prompt in a resource file, because I can't pass a String array to the annotation this way:

(definterface Foo
  (^{UserMessage {:fromResource "foo-prompt.txt"}} ;; can't see my prompt right here :'(
   ^String foo [^{V "role"} role ^{V "problem-statement"} problem-statement]))

Now for my attempt. I am inexperienced with macros and so used Claude, and then tweaked it in my own experiments. (Updated 2025-04-14; see update at bottom of question.)

(defmacro defprompt
  "Define a Langchain4j prompt interface for AiServices.
  
  Arguments:
    name - the name for the interface (will be capitalized)
    prompt - a string prompt template with {{variable}} placeholders 
    method-name - the name of the single method
    
  Example:
    (defprompt brainstorming
      \"ACT as a professional {{role}} and brainstorm on this problem statement: {{problemStatement}} Give different possible solutions that make sense.\")
  
  Returns the interface symbol that can be passed to AiServices/create."
  [name prompt]
  (let [interface-name (symbol (str name))
        
        ;; Extract variables from the prompt
        pattern #"\{\{([^}]+)\}\}"
        param-names (->> (re-seq pattern prompt)
                         (map second)
                         (distinct))
                         
        ;; Create parameter declarations with annotations
        param-decls (mapv (fn [param]
                            (let [param-sym (symbol param)]
                              (with-meta param-sym
                                {V {:value param}
                                 :tag String})))
                          param-names)]
    
    `(definterface ~interface-name
       (~(with-meta 'prompt
          {:tag String
           UserMessage {:value (into-array java.lang.String (list prompt))}})
         [~@param-decls]))))

The problem is that the interface is defined but it doesn't have the method it should have. Sounds like an AOT/compilation thing; I ran into this problem previously with gen-class and realized in that situation that I needed to compile the namespace to make my gen'd class usable. As I said, I want to avoid AOT or compilation; I want the interface available immediately in the REPL (as it was with my definterface solution) so that I can quickly iterate on ideas in my REPL.

Resources I've followed:

• Clojure macros, reify and Java annotations. Oh my!
• Lots of trial and error, docs, and macroexpand[-1]. The macro seems to expand correctly but it still doesn't make my interface's method available in the REPL.

Update, 2025-04-14

1. When I say that the method isn't present, I mean that the method foo doesn't appear in the output of this command:

(->> Foo
     .getClass
     .getDeclaredMethods
     #_(mapcat #(.getAnnotations %))
     pprint
)

2. I haven't written the Java interface I want; I used the definterface approach shown above. But the Java would probably look like:

interface Foo {
  @UserMessage("The {{role}} says {{sound}}.")
  String foo(@V("role") String role, @V("sound") String sound);
}

3. I modified the macro above to my latest version. When I macroexpand-1 it with *print-meta*, I get this — which looks right. But Langchain4j is complaining that it doesn't see my parameter (@V) )annotations.

(clojure.core/definterface Foo
  (^{:tag java.lang.String
     dev.langchain4j.service.UserMessage {:value #object["[Ljava.lang.String;" 0x92b8d3e "[Ljava.lang.String;@92b8d3e"]}}
   prompt
   [^{dev.langchain4j.service.V "role",
      :tag java.lang.String} role
    ^{dev.langchain4j.service.V "sound",
      :tag java.lang.String} sound]))

4. Thanks to @amalloy, I ran javap -v -p on the interface .class file. It has correct types (so type hints are right) but no annotations.