I am a bit uncertain about how to use Hibernate validation annotations. I wonder if anyone would be kind enough to answer a few questions:

When applying ClassValidator to an object graph, are transient objects validated?

When applying ClassValidator to an object graph, is validation skipped for uninitialized objects and collections? Or can validation trigger initialization?

Is it safe and robust to use validation annotations for non-Hibernate beans in another layer of the architecture?

Is it safe and robust to use Hibernate annotations only for validation while using HBM files for all other metadata?

Thanks,

Juan