Annotation retention and targets

Policy	Kept in .class	Visible to reflection	Typical use
SOURCE	no	no	@Override, Lombok
CLASS (default)	yes	no	bytecode tools
RUNTIME	yes	yes	Spring, JPA, Jackson

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target({ ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.TYPE })
@Inherited
public @interface Audited {
    String value() default "";
    Level level() default Level.INFO;
}

Details that catch people out

• @Inherited applies only to class-level annotations, and only down a superclass chain — never through interfaces.
• Elements may be primitives, String, Class, enums, other annotations, or arrays of these. Nothing else.
• An element named value can be written positionally: @Audited("payment").

Repeatable annotations

@Repeatable(Schedules.class)
public @interface Schedule { String cron(); }

This is compiler sugar. The two occurrences are wrapped in the container annotation, so reflection must ask for Schedules — or use getAnnotationsByType, which unwraps it for you.