1. A method for deploying installable software artifacts in canonical form, the method comprising: storing artifacts in platform independent canonical form; receiving a request from a client for one of a first time provisioning and an update to a specified application for a specific target platform; locating the stored artifacts according to the specified application; dynamically generating a feature from the stored artifacts for the specific target platform; and, performing one of first time provisioning and updating the specified application in the client with the dynamically generated feature.