A method for managing a software application. The method involves receiving an abstract API command to perform a life cycle operation (LCO) on a target system, where the LCO identifies the software application, where the software application is associated with a software application schema, and where the target system is associated with a platform independent registry, determining whether the LCO is compatible with the target system using the software application schema and the platform independent registry, where the LCO is compatible with the target system; mapping the abstract API command to an operating system (OS)-specific command for performing the LCO, where the OS-specific command is associated with an OS executing on the target system; executing the OS-specific API command to perform the LCO on the target system to obtain a result; and updating the platform independent registry based on the result.