There seems to be a possible application of Merkle trees evident in the kind of data model I need for storing components. The need will only emerge later on when I bring in versioning for the components which will need unique identification of each version by a hash. But logging this possibility here so that I can come back and verify if my hunch was correct.

Merkle trees are structures where you generate the hash for the parent node with the hashes of the children. This approach helps in verifying data integrity in P2P apps. I would have to examine closer if I need that kind of guarantees.