This project is created as part of the process of transitioning Java EE 8 technologies to the Eclipse Foundation as described in The EE4J Project Top Level Project Charter. Unlike most of the Java EE specifications, Contexts and Dependency Injection was led by a non-Oracle organization, namely Red Hat.

The project aims to continue the standardization work of the Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) specification, which is part of the Java EE platform, but which also is designed since version 2.0 for use in Java SE environments. Previous revisions of that specification were created under the Java Community Process (JCP):

CDI 1.0 (JSR 299), part of Java EE 6

CDI 1.1 and 1.2 (JSR 346), part of Java EE 7

CDI 2.0 (JSR 365), part of Java EE 8

Quoting the CDI2.0 specification, its goals are these: