Hey,
If you are configuring an IDE to run an HBase client, you should include the conf/ directory on your classpath so hbase-site.xml settings.
A basic example hbase-site.xml for the client only may look as follows:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="configuration.xsl"?>
<configuration>
<property>
<name>hbase.zookeeper.quorum</name>
<value>example1,example2,example3</value>
<description>The directory shared by region servers.
</description>
</property>
</configuration>