A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving a configuration specification for configuring a cloud-based deployment, the configuration specification being written in a specification language and requiring instantiation of respective class definitions of one or more classes, each class modeling a respective data or functional component of the cloud-based deployment using a group of configurable class parameters, and the respective class definition of each class representing a requested state of the data or functional component modeled by the class; deriving a plurality of application programming interface calls for configuring the cloud-based deployment based on the class definitions of the one or more classes; causing the plurality of API calls to be executed to configure the cloud-based deployment; identifying (902, 1810) a plurality of cloud-based deployments each having been carried out according to a respective configuration specification written in the specification language; identifying (904, 1810) base classes whose class defnition is used in multiple of the plurality of cloud-based deployments; monitoring (906, 1820) respective performance of each of the plurality of cloud-based deployments; determining a corresponding quality metric for each of the base classes based on aggregated performance of the plurality of cloud-based deployments wherein the determining includes: identifying one or more data or functional components in the plurality of cloud-based deployments that are configured according to the class definition of the base class or a new class definition derived from the class definition, identifying one or more performance metrics associated with the identified one or more data or functional components, and deriving a performance metric associated with the class definition by aggregating the identified one or more performance metrics, calculating the quality metric utilizing the performance metric; providing the performance metric for each of the base classes for user review in a selection user interface to enable selection of one of the base classes. receiving a configuration specification for configuring a cloud-based deployment, the configuration specification being written in a specification language and requiring instantiation of respective class definitions of one or more classes, each class modeling a respective data or functional component of the cloud-based deployment using a group of configurable class parameters, and the respective class definition of each class representing a requested state of the data or functional component modeled by the class; deriving a plurality of application programming interface calls for configuring the cloud-based deployment based on the class definitions of the one or more classes; causing the plurality of API calls to be executed to configure the cloud-based deployment; identifying (902, 1810) a plurality of cloud-based deployments each having been carried out according to a respective configuration specification written in the specification language; identifying (904, 1810) base classes whose class defnition is used in multiple of the plurality of cloud-based deployments; monitoring (906, 1820) respective performance of each of the plurality of cloud-based deployments; determining a corresponding quality metric for each of the base classes based on aggregated performance of the plurality of cloud-based deployments wherein the determining includes: identifying one or more data or functional components in the plurality of cloud-based deployments that are configured according to the class definition of the base class or a new class definition derived from the class definition, identifying one or more performance metrics associated with the identified one or more data or functional components, and deriving a performance metric associated with the class definition by aggregating the identified one or more performance metrics, calculating the quality metric utilizing the performance metric; providing the performance metric for each of the base classes for user review in a selection user interface to enable selection of one of the base classes. identifying one or more data or functional components in the plurality of cloud-based deployments that are configured according to the class definition of the base class or a new class definition derived from the class definition, identifying one or more performance metrics associated with the identified one or more data or functional components, and deriving a performance metric associated with the class definition by aggregating the identified one or more performance metrics, calculating the quality metric utilizing the performance metric; providing the performance metric for each of the base classes for user review in a selection user interface to enable selection of one of the base classes.