1. A method comprising: providing, by a content management system, a first party web application to a user; receiving a first text input from the user, the text input including a dependency primitive; responsive to receiving the first text input, displaying an indication to the user that a dependency object will be created in response to receiving a second text input including a dependency formula; receiving the second text input including the dependency formula; determining, based on a set of syntax rules, whether the dependency primitive indicates a reference dependency or an alias dependency and whether the dependency formula is valid, wherein the set of syntax rules identifies the dependency primitive as a reference dependency in response to the dependency primitive including a mathematical operation, and wherein the set of syntax rules identifies the dependency primitive as an alias dependency otherwise; responsive to determining that the dependency primitive indicates a reference dependency and the dependency formula is syntactically valid: creating in a dependency graph a dependency object, the dependency object having an object ID, an object name, a formula for the dependency object, dependencies of the object, and dependents of the object; recursively calculating a resultant value of the dependency object using the formula for the dependency object and the value of all dependencies of the dependency object; and displaying by the first party web application the resultant value of the dependency object; responsive to determining that the dependency primitive indicates an alias dependency and the dependency formula includes an existing dependency object name: recursively calculating a resultant value of an existing dependency object corresponding to the existing dependency object name using the formula for the existing dependency object and the value of all dependencies of the existing dependency object without creating a new dependency object in the dependency graph; displaying by the first party web application the resultant value of the existing dependency object; and synchronizing the displayed resultant value with the existing dependency object.