The invention includes a generic, markup specified object descriptor for a modularized computing application. The invention can include an extension to a modular computing application and a markup parser coupled to the extension. The markup parser can be enabled to process a generic, markup specified descriptor for an object. The descriptor can include an object reference referring to the object, a class reference for the object reference, and one or more method references for the object reference. Each method reference can specify a name for a method defined for the object and at least one of a value attribute and a not value attribute. The markup parser can be enabled to process the descriptor to reflectively determine a type and state of the object and to compare the state with either or both of the value and not value attribute to determine whether an expected context exists for the object.