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Dependency Management
Third-Party Dependencies
Software Development
Code Quality
Version Control
ARTICLE #74
How to manage third-party dependencies?
Dependency Management
Third-Party Dependencies
Software Development
Code Quality
Version Control
Written by:
3 min read
Updated on: August 5, 2024
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
Toni Hukkanen
Head of Design
Creative Direction, Brand Direction
Agile teams frequently face difficulties in managing third-party dependencies and integrations, particularly when working on complex projects. Third-party dependencies, which include libraries, frameworks, cloud platforms, APIs, and other external components or services, are necessary for your product to function.
Integrations refer to the linkages between your product and other applications or systems, such as CRM tools, payment gateways, or databases. Dependencies and integrations can bring risks and uncertainties that impact your product's performance, delivery, and quality.
How can you reduce these risks and ensure that Agile approaches in third-party provider collaboration go smoothly? Here is how.
Agile teams frequently face difficulties in managing third-party dependencies and integrations, particularly when working on complex projects. Third-party dependencies, which include libraries, frameworks, cloud platforms, APIs, and other external components or services, are necessary for your product to function.
Integrations refer to the linkages between your product and other applications or systems, such as CRM tools, payment gateways, or databases. Dependencies and integrations can bring risks and uncertainties that impact your product's performance, delivery, and quality.
How can you reduce these risks and ensure that Agile approaches in third-party provider collaboration go smoothly? Here is how.
Agile teams frequently face difficulties in managing third-party dependencies and integrations, particularly when working on complex projects. Third-party dependencies, which include libraries, frameworks, cloud platforms, APIs, and other external components or services, are necessary for your product to function.
Integrations refer to the linkages between your product and other applications or systems, such as CRM tools, payment gateways, or databases. Dependencies and integrations can bring risks and uncertainties that impact your product's performance, delivery, and quality.
How can you reduce these risks and ensure that Agile approaches in third-party provider collaboration go smoothly? Here is how.
Evaluate dependencies
Evaluate dependencies
Evaluate dependencies
Before integrating dependencies in your project always have a thorough assessment to find out if it fulfills all the requirements and has compatibility with your project.
Check the factors like functionality, licensing, documentation quality, community support, and maintenance. It’s a proven practice that if a dependency has an active community and it’s open for regular updates, it’s more reliable.
Before integrating dependencies in your project always have a thorough assessment to find out if it fulfills all the requirements and has compatibility with your project.
Check the factors like functionality, licensing, documentation quality, community support, and maintenance. It’s a proven practice that if a dependency has an active community and it’s open for regular updates, it’s more reliable.
Before integrating dependencies in your project always have a thorough assessment to find out if it fulfills all the requirements and has compatibility with your project.
Check the factors like functionality, licensing, documentation quality, community support, and maintenance. It’s a proven practice that if a dependency has an active community and it’s open for regular updates, it’s more reliable.
Dependency management tools
Consider using dependency management tools that come up with the programming language or framework you are using for your project. These tools will help to automate the installation, updates, and removal of dependencies to handle them optimistically.
For example, npm, pip, Maven, Composer, and Gradle are popular tools for Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, and Android, respectively. These tools also help specify the dependency versions effectively.
Consider using dependency management tools that come up with the programming language or framework you are using for your project. These tools will help to automate the installation, updates, and removal of dependencies to handle them optimistically.
For example, npm, pip, Maven, Composer, and Gradle are popular tools for Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, and Android, respectively. These tools also help specify the dependency versions effectively.
Consider using dependency management tools that come up with the programming language or framework you are using for your project. These tools will help to automate the installation, updates, and removal of dependencies to handle them optimistically.
For example, npm, pip, Maven, Composer, and Gradle are popular tools for Node.js, Python, Java, PHP, and Android, respectively. These tools also help specify the dependency versions effectively.
Version control
To ensure the consistency of development environments and deployments and to avoid unexpected updates that ask for quick changes, use the exact version of dependencies in your project.
To check the version of the dependencies before integrating them into your project, look for SemVer. It has a universal way of versioning software libraries and provides clear rules for incrementing the version numbers based on major, minor, and patch.
To ensure the consistency of development environments and deployments and to avoid unexpected updates that ask for quick changes, use the exact version of dependencies in your project.
To check the version of the dependencies before integrating them into your project, look for SemVer. It has a universal way of versioning software libraries and provides clear rules for incrementing the version numbers based on major, minor, and patch.
To ensure the consistency of development environments and deployments and to avoid unexpected updates that ask for quick changes, use the exact version of dependencies in your project.
To check the version of the dependencies before integrating them into your project, look for SemVer. It has a universal way of versioning software libraries and provides clear rules for incrementing the version numbers based on major, minor, and patch.
Dependency locking
Dependency locking will help your development environment prevent sudden and inessential updates by specifying the version in a file and applying locking to it.
This will ensure that all the team members working on the same project will work under the same dependency version. It will eventually reduce the risk of compatibility and make the overall tools and framework of the project reproducible.
Dependency locking will help your development environment prevent sudden and inessential updates by specifying the version in a file and applying locking to it.
This will ensure that all the team members working on the same project will work under the same dependency version. It will eventually reduce the risk of compatibility and make the overall tools and framework of the project reproducible.
Dependency locking will help your development environment prevent sudden and inessential updates by specifying the version in a file and applying locking to it.
This will ensure that all the team members working on the same project will work under the same dependency version. It will eventually reduce the risk of compatibility and make the overall tools and framework of the project reproducible.
Regular updates
This is one of the best practices when it comes to dependencies management for best results. Update the dependencies in small chunks regularly as this will help to test the changes automatically.
Moreover, don’t forget to keep an eye on the changelogs coming forward for the dependencies with each update. However, if you are updating after a longer period, make sure to test the changes carefully.
This is one of the best practices when it comes to dependencies management for best results. Update the dependencies in small chunks regularly as this will help to test the changes automatically.
Moreover, don’t forget to keep an eye on the changelogs coming forward for the dependencies with each update. However, if you are updating after a longer period, make sure to test the changes carefully.
This is one of the best practices when it comes to dependencies management for best results. Update the dependencies in small chunks regularly as this will help to test the changes automatically.
Moreover, don’t forget to keep an eye on the changelogs coming forward for the dependencies with each update. However, if you are updating after a longer period, make sure to test the changes carefully.
Automated testing
Automated testing will help ensure that none of the updates will break the functionality of your application. For detailed coverage of testing the updates of the dependencies, write a precise code for functional testing and specify all the integration points with dependencies and use cases for test coverage.
For this, you integrate your CI pipeline with automated tests so that whenever any change occurs in the code, it tests automatically.
Automated testing will help ensure that none of the updates will break the functionality of your application. For detailed coverage of testing the updates of the dependencies, write a precise code for functional testing and specify all the integration points with dependencies and use cases for test coverage.
For this, you integrate your CI pipeline with automated tests so that whenever any change occurs in the code, it tests automatically.
Automated testing will help ensure that none of the updates will break the functionality of your application. For detailed coverage of testing the updates of the dependencies, write a precise code for functional testing and specify all the integration points with dependencies and use cases for test coverage.
For this, you integrate your CI pipeline with automated tests so that whenever any change occurs in the code, it tests automatically.
Security scanning
Give a security scan to all the dependencies by using tools like Synk and GitLab for any known vulnerabilities to analyse the metadata of the dependency and compare that with all the databases of that vulnerability.
If any fishy thing is detected, go for a patch update or consider some other alternative to that dependency. Furthermore, a security scan should be integrated into the CI pipeline so that the vulnerability detection process will automatically take place.
Give a security scan to all the dependencies by using tools like Synk and GitLab for any known vulnerabilities to analyse the metadata of the dependency and compare that with all the databases of that vulnerability.
If any fishy thing is detected, go for a patch update or consider some other alternative to that dependency. Furthermore, a security scan should be integrated into the CI pipeline so that the vulnerability detection process will automatically take place.
Give a security scan to all the dependencies by using tools like Synk and GitLab for any known vulnerabilities to analyse the metadata of the dependency and compare that with all the databases of that vulnerability.
If any fishy thing is detected, go for a patch update or consider some other alternative to that dependency. Furthermore, a security scan should be integrated into the CI pipeline so that the vulnerability detection process will automatically take place.
Audit and remove unused dependencies
Do a proper audit of the unused dependencies from time to time by using any tool or code scripts to analyse project dependencies and the pattern to use them. If you identify any dependencies that are no longer needed, remove them to reduce the complexity of the code, decrease any potential virus attack, and improve build performance.
Do a proper audit of the unused dependencies from time to time by using any tool or code scripts to analyse project dependencies and the pattern to use them. If you identify any dependencies that are no longer needed, remove them to reduce the complexity of the code, decrease any potential virus attack, and improve build performance.
Do a proper audit of the unused dependencies from time to time by using any tool or code scripts to analyse project dependencies and the pattern to use them. If you identify any dependencies that are no longer needed, remove them to reduce the complexity of the code, decrease any potential virus attack, and improve build performance.
Fallback mechanisms
The fallback mechanism is important to get alternative solutions for important dependencies to reduce the risk of service outages or disturbances caused by dependency failure.
To this end, you can implement caching strategies, circuit breakers, or alternative service providers to handle dependency failures and maintain application functionality gracefully.
The fallback mechanism is important to get alternative solutions for important dependencies to reduce the risk of service outages or disturbances caused by dependency failure.
To this end, you can implement caching strategies, circuit breakers, or alternative service providers to handle dependency failures and maintain application functionality gracefully.
The fallback mechanism is important to get alternative solutions for important dependencies to reduce the risk of service outages or disturbances caused by dependency failure.
To this end, you can implement caching strategies, circuit breakers, or alternative service providers to handle dependency failures and maintain application functionality gracefully.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a third-party dependency?
Third-party dependencies are pre-built libraries, pieces of code, frameworks, or services created by external developers that other developers can smoothly integrate into their projects.
What are the different types of dependencies in software architecture?
There are five types of dependencies in software architecture.
Chain
Stack
Shared people
Shared resources
Shared codebase
Each type of dependency has its own challenges that influence delivery speed and quality.
What are dependencies in API?
API dependencies help you see and manage the relationships between API operations. If you find and track an API’s dependencies, it will help you manage your API ecosystem more efficiently.
Wrapping Up
Developers are increasingly worried about dependency management due to the increased frequency of data breaches and the importance of compliance. By developing a clear strategy that prioritises dependents with vulnerabilities and automatically manages updates, you can avoid dependency hell.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a third-party dependency?
Third-party dependencies are pre-built libraries, pieces of code, frameworks, or services created by external developers that other developers can smoothly integrate into their projects.
What are the different types of dependencies in software architecture?
There are five types of dependencies in software architecture.
Chain
Stack
Shared people
Shared resources
Shared codebase
Each type of dependency has its own challenges that influence delivery speed and quality.
What are dependencies in API?
API dependencies help you see and manage the relationships between API operations. If you find and track an API’s dependencies, it will help you manage your API ecosystem more efficiently.
Wrapping Up
Developers are increasingly worried about dependency management due to the increased frequency of data breaches and the importance of compliance. By developing a clear strategy that prioritises dependents with vulnerabilities and automatically manages updates, you can avoid dependency hell.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a third-party dependency?
Third-party dependencies are pre-built libraries, pieces of code, frameworks, or services created by external developers that other developers can smoothly integrate into their projects.
What are the different types of dependencies in software architecture?
There are five types of dependencies in software architecture.
Chain
Stack
Shared people
Shared resources
Shared codebase
Each type of dependency has its own challenges that influence delivery speed and quality.
What are dependencies in API?
API dependencies help you see and manage the relationships between API operations. If you find and track an API’s dependencies, it will help you manage your API ecosystem more efficiently.
Wrapping Up
Developers are increasingly worried about dependency management due to the increased frequency of data breaches and the importance of compliance. By developing a clear strategy that prioritises dependents with vulnerabilities and automatically manages updates, you can avoid dependency hell.
ARTICLE #74
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