diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2b41dd03..77998076 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -32,18 +32,17 @@ dependencies = [
 [project.optional-dependencies]
 hdf_reader = [
     "fsspec",
+    "h5py",
     "hdf5plugin",
     "imagecodecs",
     "imagecodecs-numcodecs==2024.6.1",
+    "numcodecs"
 ]
 test = [
     "codecov",
     "fastparquet",
     "fsspec",
     "h5py",
-    "hdf5plugin",
-    "imagecodecs",
-    "imagecodecs-numcodecs==2024.6.1",
     "kerchunk>=0.2.5",
     "mypy",
     "netcdf4",
@@ -57,6 +56,7 @@ test = [
     "ruff",
     "s3fs",
     "scipy",
+    "virtualizarr[hdf_reader]"
 ]
 
 
diff --git a/virtualizarr/readers/hdf/hdf.py b/virtualizarr/readers/hdf/hdf.py
index 6f01c1eb..a942268c 100644
--- a/virtualizarr/readers/hdf/hdf.py
+++ b/virtualizarr/readers/hdf/hdf.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import math
+from dataclasses import dataclass
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Dict, Iterable, List, Mapping, Optional, Union
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -21,6 +22,15 @@
 
 h5py = soft_import("h5py", "For reading hdf files", strict=False)
 
+if not h5py:
+
+    @dataclass
+    class h5py_stub:
+        Group: str
+        Dataset: str
+
+    h5py = h5py_stub(Group="", Dataset="")
+
 
 class HDFVirtualBackend(VirtualBackend):
     @staticmethod