Systems and methods are disclosed for configuring a web application based on a general property hierarchy. An application property scheme including one or more property hierarchy levels may be generated based on values within a system configuration file. Each level defines configuration values for various properties associated with the web application. A property retrieval subsystem of the general property hierarchy may be used to look up configuration values from the appropriate hierarchy level(s) of the application property scheme in order to configure one or more properties of the web application during its execution. The values in the system configuration file may be changed and the changes may be reflected dynamically in the application property scheme without substantial interruption to the execution of the web application.