1. A computer program product for generating output to control a target program executing on a target computer, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to perform operations, the operations comprising: providing an automation object including a plurality of expressions and corresponding responses, wherein at least one of the responses includes a response variable; providing a configuration object providing machine specific values for the response variables in the responses for the target computer; generating compiled responses by replacing the response variables in the responses with the machine specific values for the response variables provided in the configuration object for the target computer on which the target program will execute; and processing the expressions in the automation object to provide compiled responses for expressions received from the executing target program.