USING A COMPLEX VALUE-BEARING LANGUAGE EXPRESSION TO GENERATE METADATA ASSOCIATED WITH AN ARTIFACT

Techniques are described herein that are capable of using a complex value-bearing language expression to generate metadata associated with an artifact. The artifact is configured to define a type and to further define the complex value-bearing language expression. The artifact is built from source code. The type defines functionality of the artifact. The complex value-bearing language expression describes a configuration of the artifact or of a function of the artifact. The functionality and the configuration are defined in the source code, are written in a same computer language, and are included in a same software project. A constant value is extracted from the complex value-bearing language expression at build time of the artifact by evaluating a syntax of the complex value-bearing language expression. During a build of the artifact, the metadata is generated to include the constant value.