The illustrative embodiments provide a method, system and computer program product for automatically capturing metadata using a template model. The template model is assembled for automatically capturing metadata during one or more stages of the life cycle of an application. Included in the template model are a description and a source of the metadata during a particular stage of the application lifecycle. The template model further includes multiple fields for dynamically capturing metadata. The template model fields may include: a stage field, an item field, a type field, specific source field, indicative field, a source list field, an analyzer reference field, default value field, and default reason field. A unique label associated with the stage field, of the template model, is read to identify the current stage of the lifecycle. The metadata associated with the current stage is automatically captured, then communicated to the application.