A method and a system for obtaining and modifying a plurality of Web components, such as portlets, via an application programming interface (API) are described. The method includes permitting a portal application to invoke a portlet, wherein the portlet runs inside a portlet container and the portal application runs independently from the portlet container; providing information to the portlet container about the invoked portlet related to a runtime environment of the portal application; and modifying the provided information from the portal application to customize the portlet. The system includes a portal application, a portlet container to permit the portal application to invoke a portlet, the portlet to run inside the portlet container and the portal application to run independently from the portlet container, an interface to provide and modify information about the invoked portlet that is related to a runtime environment of the portal application, and an interface to provide a portlet mode, a window state, and a set of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) parameters to the portal application to create a valid portlet URL.