Systems and techniques for providing a master data framework. The framework receives user input and automatically generates, in accordance with the input, a persistent definition of a business object type. The input can be simple declarations and need not be provided in any particular programming language. Definitions generated by the framework adhere to a same data model, regardless of the business object type they are defining. The framework allows the user to create a definition of a business object type by associating two or more definitions of other business object types. The framework provides services that can be applied, without further customization, to any definition of business object types generated by the framework. These services, for example, can be used by a calling application to instantiate business objects or to change a state of a business object instance.