Bieber has suggested the following back-end requirements for system-level approaches to hypermedia integration or client/engine cooperation.^{[Bieber, 1993]}

Back-end Requirements:

The hypermedia engine would provide functionality such as linking, annotation, backtracking, filtering, and overviews on behalf of the back-end. The back-end should provide the following functionality:

• Provide specific information about its structure and its applications' documents.
• Bridge laws must be written by developers. This could be done through a bridge law editor instead of writing predicate logic.
• Back-ends should provide control information and interpretive mechanisms along with the objects that are sent through messages. For example, objects that have to serve as link markers could be tagged.
• Back-ends should support hypermedia engine commands same as the front-end (command lists and context sensitive information).
• Back-end should incorporate a standard document interchange standard such as ODA or SGML.