Abstract: A program may be extended to another program in accordance with information stored in a meta data file. A parent program is associated with the meta data file, and a child program is associated with a child description file created to conform to the information provided in the meta data file. The child description file is stored in a well-known location where it may be accessed by the parent program to learn how communicate with the child program, including which arguments and parameters to use, advantageously providing parent programs with a consistent user interface when interfacing with various child programs as well as the flexibility to add or change child description files to describe new or changed child programs as the need arises.