JSF Lifecycle in short

1. JSF Restore View: First phase receives the page request from JSF servlet and attempts to find and restore server side components state (A set of server side memory objects that builds the server side hierarchical page structure.). If view can't found as identified by requested view id , a new view is created on the server and the current page's view is stored in FacesContext static object.
2. Apply request values: The requested values are read and converted to the data type requested by underlying model attributes. The values are accessed from UI components submitted values and passed to local value. When an input component's immediate attribute is set to true, its component validation is performed and component's listeners are executed within this phase. This is one of two phases in which page navigation can occur.
3. Process Validation: Components are validated for missing data. At the end of this phase value change events are fired.
4. Update Model Values: Model is updated with the validated value of UI components local values. Then local values of UI components are discarded.
5. Invoke Application: During this phase , all application level events such as Form Submits are executed. This phase also executes a view layer logic that is stored in action listeners. Page navigation can occur in this phase.
6. Render Response: Prepares the page view for display on client (Browser). If page view is called for first time, then restore view phase directly passed control to this phase.