Jo-Pack is an opensource ultra light package management software – that is targeted for simplifying development with large teams sharing volatile assemblies across several solutions.

For example you have a common framework and several applications using the common framework. You need to build the common framework and the projects in parallel but at the same time you want the application teams to be as much as possible isolated. JoePack was created to solve exactly this type of scenarios.

The assemblies or other files making part of the shared parts can be grouped into logical units named packages. The teams working on the group of applications/frameworks share a centralized catalog that describes the packages that are shared between solutions.

The catalog is basically an xml file defining the packages and the files included in those packages.

Every solution contains a local dependency.xml file. This file lists the packages that are used by a particular solution.

Based on the dependency.xml file JoPack will syncronize the local reference folder with the shared files. You can also describe the dependencies between packages in the catalog file– so that if a dependent packages can automatically been downloaded without having to explicitly adding it to the dependency file.

Typically the shared files listed in the catalog.xml file are created by continuous integration builds that are available on the network. Each time a new version of an assembly is created and put on a share by the CI build - a developer can use JoPack to synchronize his local reference folder. When using Visual Studio you should add the referenced assemblies of your project from your local Reference folder so that Visual Studio will automatically update the project bin folder. Once the solution is build and all tests are passing the local reference folder can be checked-in.

You can also automate this process by running JoPack as part of your CI build: Create a pre-build target that launches JoPack to sync the solution local reference folder on the CI server. Also add a post build target that check’s-in the server local reference folder when the build succeed.