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>