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: (i) representations of the one or more additional components, the representations of the one or more additional components stored in the dependency registry indicating whether a corresponding one of the one or more additional components is configured for change notification; and (ii) one or more status indicators for each component configured for change notification; identifying a change to the at least one additional component; changing the one or more status indicators corresponding to the at least one additional component in the dependency registry; and indicating to the observing component directly that one or more of the one or more identified additional components have changed.