Providing a contract between an application server and a resource adapter that allows the application server to manage the lifecycle of the resource adapter. When deploying a resource adapter (or during application server startup), an application server bootstraps a resource adapter instance in an appropriate address space. When a resource adapter is undeployed (or during application server shutdown), the application server notifies the resource adapter instance to stop functioning in order to allow safe unloading. The contract provides a mechanism for an application server to manage the lifecycle of a resource adapter instance, allowing an application server to bootstrap a resource adapter instance during resource adapter deployment or application server startup and to expose some of its useful facilities to the resource adapter instance. It also provides a mechanism to notify the resource adapter instance while it is undeployed or during an orderly shutdown of the application server.