Abstract The design and development of distributed applications consisting of microservices is an emerging pattern, considering the advantages associated with the management of self-deployable and orchestratable components as well as the adoption of a DevOps culture in cloud applications deployment and management. In this position paper, we present a context model for representing the entire lifecycle of reconfigurable-by-design distributed applications consisting of microservices and denoted in the form of a service graph. Based on the context model, we describe a policies management framework targeted at service providers for managing deployment and orchestration aspects of such applications over a programmable infrastructure.