The Autonomic System Specification Language (ASSL) is a framework that implies a multi-tier structure for specifying autonomic systems (ASs). It targets at the generation of an operational framework instance from the ASSL specification. In general, the framework helps to design and generate an autonomic computing (AC) wrapper that embeds the components of existing systems, i.e. it allows non-intrusive adding of self-management features to existing systems. Moreover, the framework allows a top-down development approach to ASs, where the generated framework instance will guide the designers to the needed components and their interfaces of the system under consideration. By its virtue, ASSL is generic and expressive enough to describe a variety of ASs.