1. At a computer system, the computer system including one or more processors and system memory, a method for configuring an application, the method comprising: receiving context for the application at application runtime, the context defining an operating environment where the application is to run; accessing previously stored metadata for the application, the previously stored metadata identifying a plurality of variables that are to be used to configure the application at the application runtime; selecting one or more pluggable configuration providers based at least in part on the context; routing the context to the one or more pluggable configuration providers selected, each of the one or more pluggable configuration providers selected configured to deduce one or more potential values for one or more of the plurality of variables based at least in part on the context; for each variable in the plurality of variables: receiving the one or more potential values for the variable from at least one of the one or more pluggable configuration providers selected; and selecting a value of the one or more potential values to assign to the variable based at least in part on priorities associated with the one or more pluggable configuration providers selected; returning a configuration to the application, the configuration based at least in part on the value selected of the one or more potential values for each variable of the plurality of variables, the configuration for configuring the application to execute in the operating environment; tracking the value selected of the one or more potential values for each variable of the plurality of variables; collecting operational data based on the configuration; analyzing the operational data and the value tracked of the one or more potential values for each variable of the plurality of variables; and returning an updated configuration to the application, the updated configuration based at least in part on the analyzing the operational data and the value tracked of the one or more potential values for each variable of the plurality of variables.