A method and apparatus is described for generating a standard software communication architecture (SCA) compliant waveform application for a software defined radio. An application shell generator is used to separate implementation of software radio software resources from implementation of software radio waveform functionality. In this manner, an additional layer of abstraction is defined and enforced between software resource objects that control access to a set of physical abstraction layer SCA core framework API's and waveform functionality. This additional abstraction layer assures that the physical abstraction layer API's only interact with architecture compliant source code. The source code, derived from software resource templates, also assures portability of the generated software radio waveform application to other SCA compliant platforms.