The described implementations provide for referencing locally and remotely deployed resources in a television-based entertainment system. The entertainment system includes a content provider or network server. The network server accesses a digital broadcast network via any one of multiple different digital broadcasting protocols. The network server distributes source content to a head end component of the system, which in turn distributes the source content to a client device such as a set-top box. The source content includes a number of embedded references to resources such as those deployed locally by the set-top box and/or deployed remotely by the network server. The set-top box utilizes a mapping table to determine actual values of syntactical abstractions in syntax of the embedded references to access and/or launch at least one locally or remotely deployed resource.