1. In a computing environment, a system comprising: an authoring mechanism by which an author specifies machine configuration policy; a transformation mechanism coupled to the authoring mechanism that formalizes the configuration policy into at least one action-style document stored in a repository; a targeting and assignment mechanism that identifies a set of action-style documents in the repository for distribution to targeted network machines, the targeting and assignment mechanism being independent of the authoring mechanism and the transformation mechanism; and a distribution mechanism coupled to the targeting mechanism to distribute the set of action-style documents to the targeted network machines, each targeted network machine including an agent that executes the set of action-style documents to perform a management task on that targeted network machine.