alesj wrote:   > In this case, what do you consider "-->" to mean? > A --> B, by this I mean that from A you can get a hold of B. > I'm producing a BeanMetaData but after that I don't have any control over how the beans are installed.  I don't see any way to get a ControllerContext or DependencyInfo off of a BMD.  I think I see what you're getting at (using a lifecycle callback on the parent to enable the child), I just don't see how to connect the dots. Even from BMD you have access to underlying ControllerContext, you just don't know it yet. :-) It's the MetaDataVisitorNode methods, that get you that, we just need to properly override them.   BMD.initialVisit(MDVN node) <-- override this ControllerContext context = node.getControllerContext(); DependencyInfo info = context.getDependencyInfo(); LifecycleCallbackItem item = new MyStarterLCI(); // this is what starts As info.addLifecycleCallback(item);   Does this make more sense?