You don’t really need any of the apache commons libraries with modern java versions, if that’s what you were referring to. Also I think that most people who are considering doing jvm development would consider kotlin as an alternative language or maybe c# and dotnet as an alternative ecosystem. I believe rust, c or cpp are rarely going to be considerations for most people in that situation.
It seems like micronaut has been able to avoid runtime bytecode generation by doing everything at compile-time. I wonder if there’s things that you can’t do the micronaut way.
In kotlin (maybe also java?) you can use the jetbrains @Language annotation to get syntax highlighting on string variables. A little more verbose but maybe it works for you.
Modern Java has Coordinated Restore at Checkpoint (CRaC) as well as ways to compile it to native binaries that can start very fast (GraalVM & Substrate VM). The former has the benefit of a JIT as well!
I actually started coding that way. Back then I automated some parts in video games like pressing a key to pickup items. There was even a GUI designer which was pretty easy to use.
For me it was AutoIT rather than AHK but if I remember correctly they're quite similar.