That is because you have done it wrong. This MC is state machine a metadata model. What you should be doing is changing the way the AbstractDependencyValueMetaData works to include demand like processing when the "bean=" is missing. i.e. You create a new DependencyItem type like the demand dependency (see org.jboss.beans.metadata.plugins.AbstractDemandMetaData$DemandDependencyItem) In particular the method "public boolean resolve(Controller controller)" View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3964952#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...