REPL loop: Adding plugin to neo4j desktop

I have been developing a plugin in java and running it using Neo4j desktop. However, the process of testing any changes to my plugin often takes a few minutes because I firstly have compile my code into a new .jar, stop the database and then drag and drop the newly compiled plugin into the plugins folder and then restart the DBMS.

This process often takes minutes at a time, this is very frustrating for debugging and is making the whole process significantly slower.

Is there a faster way to get around this issue?

I write unit tests.

I used to also create an in memory instance with the plug-in loaded and then put the main thread to sleep for an indefinite time. I could then connect remotely via desktop. I ended up using the unit tests as my primary method.