In general the annotation based metadata is not authoritative and should be overridden. Carlo has some examples of where it needs to be additively merged rather than the xml overriding annotations. One example of a problem I have seen is an annotation mappedName overriding a jboss descriptor jndi-name. That is incorrect. So what are the options? (addAll) - the "override" metadata is simply replaces the "original" metadata? (customizing) - the "override" metadata is merged with the "original" metadata with the override fields overriding the original? For the (customizing) behavior, this typically will need to be done recursively. Both override and original will have references metadata for example that needs to be merged down to the reference level. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4156010#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...