Techniques are described for representing commands of a user interface of an application. One or more command descriptions for one or more commands are received. Each of the command descriptions has one or more properties and represents an instance of one of the commands. One or more command group descriptions for one or more command groups are received. Each of the command group descriptions has one or more properties, represents an instance of one of the command groups at a level in a group hierarchy, and specifies one or more group members. Each of the group members represents a derived instance of one of the commands or a derived instance of one of the command groups. Properties of each derived instance of a command and each derived instance of a command group inherit properties from one or more ancestor instances.