An enterprise application component deployable at runtime, such as control, can support a set of properties associated with it and corresponding configuration mechanisms to operate on the properties. Here, the application component can be but is not limited to, a Java® bean, an enterprise Java® bean (EJB), a class, a J2EE module, and other suitable concepts based on, Java®, C++, C#, and other suitable object-oriented programming language. The properties of the component can be configured via annotations/manifest, which describes the invariant state of a plurality of annotations on the fields, types and methods of the component set at the build/design time. Since such annotations (configuration) values may reflect configuration that is specific to a targeted deployment environment of the component, they may need to be overridden (revised) externally at runtime and it is desirable that such annotation override will not require (1) modifying the application component or its packaging and (2) re-start/re-deploy the application component.