An autonomic component installation system. The system can include a catalog of host components installed within a computing system and an autonomic installer coupled to the catalog and programmed to determine, when installing an upgraded component, whether the upgraded component provides component capabilities required by the host components in the catalog. The catalog can include both host components and respective publicly accessible data, method implementations and method prototypes provided by the host components. Consequently, the autonomic installer can determine whether the upgraded component will have access to required publicly accessible data and method implementations. The autonomic installer further can be configured to determine whether modifications included in the upgraded component have caused changes in associated method prototypes which differ from the method prototypes in the catalog. Finally, a machine-readable ReadMe file processor can be coupled to the autonomic installer to identify the required publicly accessible data and methods implementations.