CDL/UC Curation Center is developing Merritt, an emergent approach to digital curation infrastructure. Merritt devolves infrastructure function into a growing set of granular, orthogonal, but interoperable micro-services embodying curation values and strategies. Since each of the services is small and self-contained, they are collectively easier to develop, deploy, maintain and enhance; equally as important, since the level of investment in and commitment to any given service is small, they are more easily replaced when they have outlived their usefulness. Yet at the same time, complex curation functionality emerges from the strategic combination of individual, atomistic services.