1. At an observation system in a computerized environment comprising a plurality of interrelated software components including one or more observing components that depend from one or more source components, which further depend from one or more additional components, a method of reporting data freshness in the one or more additional components directly to the one or more observing components, comprising the acts of: receiving one or more requests from an observing component to process data corresponding to one or more source components; during processing, identifying one or more additional components from which the one or more source components depend, wherein at least one of the one or more additional components is configured for change notification; storing in a dependency registry one or more representations of the additional components configured for change notification; and indicating to the observing component directly that one or more of the one or more identified additional components have changed.