Methods, systems, and computer-readable storage media for receiving, in response to instantiation of an application that enables access to data within the database layer through a data model, an application programming interface (API) definition provided as a computer-readable file, the API definition being received API definitions store, processing the API definition to provide an entity type definition as a computer-readable file, the entity type definition being specific to the data model, processing the entity type definition to provide a service that enables access to data within the database layer through the data model during execution of the application, and hosting the service to enable access to the data within the database layer based on one or more queries submitted from a web client.