Computing systems, devices, and associated methods of operation of processing packets in a distributed computing system are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a packet having a header with multiple header fields and a payload and parsing one or more of the multiple header fields of the received packet. The method also includes matching the received packet with an rule object from each of multiple layer objects individually containing multiple rule objects based on the parsed one or more of the multiple header fields. The rule object has one or more conditions matching the one or more parsed header fields of the packet and a corresponding flow action. The method further includes generating a composite action by combining the flow actions individually corresponding to one of the matched rule objects from one of multiple layer objects and applying the generated composite action to the packet.