Adam Wiggins
2.2 KiB
II. Dependencies
Explicit dependency declaration and isolation
Most programming languages offer a packaging system for distributing support libraries, such as CPAN for Perl or Rubygems for Ruby. Libraries installed through a packaging system can be installed system-wide (known as "site packages") or only into the directory containing the app (known as "vendoring" or "bundling").
A twelve-factor app never relies on implicit existence of system-wide packages. It declares all dependencies, completely and exactly, via a dependency declaration tool. Furthermore, it uses dependency isolation tool during execution to ensure that no implicit dependencies "leak in" from the surrounding system.
For example, Gem Bundler for Ruby offers the Gemfile format for declaration and bundle exec for dependency isolation. In, Python there are two separate tools for these steps - Pip is used for dependency declaration and Virtualenv for dependency isolation. Regardless of tools, dependency declaration and isolation must be used together - only one or the other is not sufficient for a twelve-factor app.
One benefit of explicit dependency declaration is that it simplifies setup for developers new to the app. The new developer can check out the app's codebase onto their development machine, requiring only the language runtime and dependency manager installed as prerequisites. They will be able to set up everything needed to run the app's code with a deterministic build command. For example, the build command for Ruby/Bundler is bundle install, while for Clojure/Leiningen it is lein deps.
Twelve-factor apps also do not rely on the implicit existence of any system tools. Examples include shelling out to ImageMagick or curl. While these tools may exist on many or even most systems, there is no guarantee that they will exist on all systems where the app may run in the future, or whether the version found on a future system will be compatible with the app. If the app needs to shell out to a system tool, that tool must be vendored into the app.