diff --git a/meta/classes/vala.bbclass b/meta/classes/vala.bbclass
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c7db08ceeb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/meta/classes/vala.bbclass
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+# Vala has problems with multiple concurrent invocations
+PARALLEL_MAKE = ""
+
+# Vala needs vala-native
+DEPENDS += "vala-native"
+DEPENDS_virtclass-native += "vala-native"
+
+# Our patched version of Vala looks in STAGING_DATADIR for .vapi files
+export STAGING_DATADIR
+# Upstream Vala >= 0.11 looks in XDG_DATA_DIRS for .vapi files
+export XDG_DATA_DIRS = "${STAGING_DATADIR}"
+
+# Package additional files
+FILES_${PN}-dev += "\
+    ${datadir}/vala/vapi/*.vapi \
+    ${datadir}/vala/vapi/*.deps \
+    ${datadir}/gir-1.0 \
+"