diff --git a/core-shaded/pom.xml b/core-shaded/pom.xml
index 87a8c01aa51..acb6fabaa51 100644
--- a/core-shaded/pom.xml
+++ b/core-shaded/pom.xml
@@ -117,10 +117,12 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
       <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   <!--
diff --git a/core/pom.xml b/core/pom.xml
index d130c850c2b..4470e708da8 100644
--- a/core/pom.xml
+++ b/core/pom.xml
@@ -128,10 +128,12 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
       <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
diff --git a/distribution-tests/pom.xml b/distribution-tests/pom.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..4b08893b073
--- /dev/null
+++ b/distribution-tests/pom.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<!--
+
+    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+    or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+    distributed with this work for additional information
+    regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+    to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+    "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+    with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+    limitations under the License.
+
+-->
+<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
+  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
+  <parent>
+    <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+    <artifactId>java-driver-parent</artifactId>
+    <version>4.5.0</version>
+  </parent>
+  <artifactId>java-driver-distribution-tests</artifactId>
+  <name>Apache Cassandra Java Driver - distribution tests</name>
+  <dependencyManagement>
+    <dependencies>
+      <dependency>
+        <groupId>${project.groupId}</groupId>
+        <artifactId>java-driver-bom</artifactId>
+        <version>${project.version}</version>
+        <type>pom</type>
+        <scope>import</scope>
+      </dependency>
+    </dependencies>
+  </dependencyManagement>
+  <dependencies>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+      <artifactId>java-driver-test-infra</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+      <artifactId>java-driver-query-builder</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+      <artifactId>java-driver-mapper-processor</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+      <artifactId>java-driver-mapper-runtime</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
+      <artifactId>java-driver-core</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>junit</groupId>
+      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
+  </dependencies>
+  <build>
+    <plugins>
+      <plugin>
+        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
+        <configuration>
+          <threadCount>1</threadCount>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+      <plugin>
+        <groupId>org.revapi</groupId>
+        <artifactId>revapi-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+        <configuration>
+          <skip>true</skip>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+      <plugin>
+        <artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
+        <configuration>
+          <skip>true</skip>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+      <plugin>
+        <artifactId>maven-deploy-plugin</artifactId>
+        <configuration>
+          <skip>true</skip>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+      <plugin>
+        <groupId>org.sonatype.plugins</groupId>
+        <artifactId>nexus-staging-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+        <configuration>
+          <skipNexusStagingDeployMojo>true</skipNexusStagingDeployMojo>
+        </configuration>
+      </plugin>
+    </plugins>
+  </build>
+</project>
diff --git a/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/DriverDependencyTest.java b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/DriverDependencyTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..2c4a22f45dc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/DriverDependencyTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package com.datastax.oss.driver.api.core;
+
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
+
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.api.core.session.Session;
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.api.mapper.MapperBuilder;
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.api.querybuilder.QueryBuilder;
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.api.testinfra.CassandraResourceRule;
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.core.util.Reflection;
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.mapper.processor.MapperProcessor;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class DriverDependencyTest {
+  @Test
+  public void should_include_core_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "com.datastax.oss.driver.api.core.session.Session"))
+        .isEqualTo(Session.class);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_include_query_builder_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "com.datastax.oss.driver.api.querybuilder.QueryBuilder"))
+        .isEqualTo(QueryBuilder.class);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_include_mapper_processor_jar() {
+    assertThat(
+            Reflection.loadClass(
+                null, "com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.mapper.processor.MapperProcessor"))
+        .isEqualTo(MapperProcessor.class);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_include_mapper_runtime_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "com.datastax.oss.driver.api.mapper.MapperBuilder"))
+        .isEqualTo(MapperBuilder.class);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_include_test_infra_jar() {
+    assertThat(
+            Reflection.loadClass(
+                null, "com.datastax.oss.driver.api.testinfra.CassandraResourceRule"))
+        .isEqualTo(CassandraResourceRule.class);
+  }
+}
diff --git a/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/OptionalDependencyTest.java b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/OptionalDependencyTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..b37ae24bc06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/OptionalDependencyTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package com.datastax.oss.driver.api.core;
+
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
+
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.core.util.DependencyCheck;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class OptionalDependencyTest {
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_snappy_jar() {
+    assertThat(DependencyCheck.SNAPPY.isPresent()).isFalse();
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_l4z_jar() {
+    assertThat(DependencyCheck.LZ4.isPresent()).isFalse();
+  }
+}
diff --git a/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/ProvidedDependencyTest.java b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/ProvidedDependencyTest.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..1070bbc2fb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/distribution-tests/src/test/java/com/datastax/oss/driver/api/core/ProvidedDependencyTest.java
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package com.datastax.oss.driver.api.core;
+
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
+
+import com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.core.util.Reflection;
+import org.junit.Test;
+
+public class ProvidedDependencyTest {
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_graal_sdk_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "org.graalvm.nativeimage.VMRuntime")).isNull();
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_spotbugs_annotations_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "edu.umd.cs.findbugs.annotations.NonNull")).isNull();
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_jicp_annotations_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "net.jcip.annotations.ThreadSafe")).isNull();
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void should_not_include_blockhound_jar() {
+    assertThat(Reflection.loadClass(null, "reactor.blockhound.BlockHoundRuntime")).isNull();
+  }
+}
diff --git a/examples/pom.xml b/examples/pom.xml
index f092b4bbe9f..5df17ac9748 100644
--- a/examples/pom.xml
+++ b/examples/pom.xml
@@ -137,6 +137,11 @@
       <artifactId>bcrypt</artifactId>
       <version>0.8.0</version>
     </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
+      <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
+    </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   <build>
     <plugins>
diff --git a/integration-tests/pom.xml b/integration-tests/pom.xml
index d2d1f3db065..5281216574f 100644
--- a/integration-tests/pom.xml
+++ b/integration-tests/pom.xml
@@ -73,6 +73,11 @@
       <type>test-jar</type>
       <scope>test</scope>
     </dependency>
+    <dependency>
+      <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
+      <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>test</scope>
+    </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
diff --git a/manual/core/integration/README.md b/manual/core/integration/README.md
index 02bcbfb65a3..44784a56ace 100644
--- a/manual/core/integration/README.md
+++ b/manual/core/integration/README.md
@@ -445,25 +445,22 @@ The driver team uses annotations to document certain aspects of the code:
 * nullability with [SpotBugs](https://spotbugs.github.io/) annotations `@Nullable` and `@NonNull`.
 
 This is mostly used during development; while these annotations are retained in class files, they
-serve no purpose at runtime. If you want to minimize the number of JARs in your classpath, you can
-exclude them:
+serve no purpose at runtime. This class is an optional dependency of the driver. If you wish to
+make use of these annotations in your own code you have to explicitly depend on these jars:
 
 ```xml
-<dependency>
-  <groupId>com.datastax.oss</groupId>
-  <artifactId>java-driver-core</artifactId>
-  <version>${driver.version}</version>
-  <exclusions>
-    <exclusion>
-      <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
-      <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
-    </exclusion>
-    <exclusion>
-      <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
-      <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
-    </exclusion>
-  </exclusions>
-</dependency>
+<dependencies>
+  <dependency>
+    <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
+    <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+    <version>1.0-1</version>
+  </dependency>
+  <dependency>
+    <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
+    <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+    <version>3.1.12</version>
+  </dependency>
+</dependencies>
 ```
 
 However, there is one case when excluding those dependencies won't work: if you use [annotation
diff --git a/mapper-processor/pom.xml b/mapper-processor/pom.xml
index 944a0ccc84d..bc1cb447487 100644
--- a/mapper-processor/pom.xml
+++ b/mapper-processor/pom.xml
@@ -54,10 +54,12 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
       <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.google.testing.compile</groupId>
diff --git a/mapper-runtime/pom.xml b/mapper-runtime/pom.xml
index cbdd534055a..a1cfb8a44b6 100644
--- a/mapper-runtime/pom.xml
+++ b/mapper-runtime/pom.xml
@@ -51,10 +51,12 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
       <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>junit</groupId>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 57fdfa4e8b9..4b6c078a626 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@
     <module>test-infra</module>
     <module>integration-tests</module>
     <module>distribution</module>
+    <module>distribution-tests</module>
     <module>examples</module>
     <module>bom</module>
   </modules>
diff --git a/query-builder/pom.xml b/query-builder/pom.xml
index efdb185b148..494cc9490fb 100644
--- a/query-builder/pom.xml
+++ b/query-builder/pom.xml
@@ -51,10 +51,12 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.stephenc.jcip</groupId>
       <artifactId>jcip-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>junit</groupId>
diff --git a/test-infra/pom.xml b/test-infra/pom.xml
index 1fdc3f35eb2..962aa907c4c 100644
--- a/test-infra/pom.xml
+++ b/test-infra/pom.xml
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
     <dependency>
       <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
       <artifactId>spotbugs-annotations</artifactId>
-      <optional>true</optional>
+      <scope>provided</scope>
     </dependency>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>junit</groupId>