In an embodiment, an upgrade rule associated with a configuration set is found, and a document associated with the upgrade rule is found. The configuration set includes a schema and an upgrade transformation, and the upgrade transformation specifies a change that was made to the schema. The document includes a lifecycle state and an element. If the upgrade rule indicates an automatic upgrade, then a mutability rule associated with the lifecycle state of the document is found and a decision is made whether the mutability rule allows the document to be changed. If the mutability rule allows the document to be changed, the element in the document is changed to include the change specified by the upgrade transformation at a time specified by the upgrade rule. If the mutability rule prevents the document from being changed, a new document is created with an initial lifecycle state, the document is copied to new document, and the element is changed in the new document to include the change specified by the upgrade transformation.