The meta-data proto definition allows the user to specify not only a protobuf file descriptor, but also a list of descriptors that are dependencies of the file. The RecordMetaData::fromProto method will then handle making sure that all of the dependencies are created, and then using those to initialize the FileDescriptor for the meta-data.
The YAML tests allow us to provide a JSON definition of the meta-data definition, but if the meta-data has some included dependencies, the loader may still attempt to create the file, leading to errors at class loading time. It should notice if the JSON definition already has the needed dependencies and then avoid attempting to fetch the dependencies from the class path in that circumstance.