Incremental application deployment allows any files under development for an application to be modified directly in place, such as on a server disk. Application and module configuration information can be collected from a user as they build their application. Each time a developer modifies the configuration of the application, changes can be immediately deployed to the server in the background, including appropriate modifications to the deployment descriptors. Once modifications are completed, the application can have already been deployed to the server.This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.