A facility for automatically processing software patches is described. The facility receives in a computing system a distinguished patch package for modifying the behavior of a programmatic entity. The facility automatically extracts from the distinguished patch package (1) patch application information that identifies a distinguished programmatic entity against which the patches to be applied, and (2) patch behavior information that specifies a manner in which to modify the behavior of the distinguished programmatic entity. The facility automatically adds to a patch table a distinguished entry containing the extracted patch application information and patch behavior information.