Why IntelliJ needs Lombok plugin?

Question

As far as I understand, Lombok uses Java\'s Annotation Processors to generate additional methods.

With Maven 3.5 it works perfectly without adding any additional con

Answer 1

It's because IDEA syntax highlighter uses internal Java parser. If IDEA used just javac, then it wouldn't be able to highlight syntax errors as you type. It also gives much better hints about wrong code, so each Java construct, feature or annotation must be implemented by JetBrains team or there's plugin for it like in this case.

Annotation processing option is just for building project which is done via javac, but it's not for syntax highlighting.