A design-time instance of an application object refers to the application object that developers create and edit in the Developer tool. When you deploy an application that contains the object to the Data Integration Service, you generate a run-time instance of the application object. The run-time instance of the object is isolated from changes in data structures in the design-time instance, so you can continue editing the design-time object in the Developer tool without altering the run-time object.

The Incremental Deployment Wizard uses both the design-time and run-time instances of application objects to decide how to apply patch contents to a deployed application. For example, the wizard decides how the patch inherits other objects based on the set of dependencies of the design-time and run-time instances of a selected object, and it fetches run-time instances of application objects to determine how they are impacted.