An abstract component model can be used to drive an editor by providing an underlying stateful model for component implementation without the need to re-implement details. The abstract component model can represent one or more artifacts, wherein the abstract component model contains a plurality of model objects. A lightweight structure model contains a plurality of structure objects, wherein each structure object is a data structure that represents how the abstract component model should look like at the end of an update cycle. Additionally, a model updater can match one or more structure objects in the lightweight structure model to one or more model objects in the abstract component model, and update each said model object in the one or more structure objects based on said one or more structure objects in a top-down, depth-first fashion.