In accordance with certain aspects of extensible configuration handlers, a method of using a configuration file to generate one or more components that are accessible to an application comprises a two-phase process. In a first phase, a plurality of components defined in a configuration file are created. In the second phase, one or more of the plurality of components are notified of the presence of the other components in the plurality of components. In accordance with certain other aspects of the extensible configuration handlers, the configuration handlers defined in a configuration file are nested configuration handlers.