Software Architect's Handbook

Dependencies

Dependencies for the application should be explicitly declared and isolated. A cloud-native application should not rely on the implicit existence of dependencies. No assumptions should be made as to what will be available in the execution environment, so applications should bring their dependencies with them and declare their dependencies both precisely and completely. The details of the dependencies should also include the specific version that is needed for each dependency.

Most modern programming languages and frameworks provide a way for an application to manage its dependencies. Sometimes these dependencies come in the form of a package, which is a distribution of software consisting of files typically bundled together in ...