use-cases.md

Artifact Use Cases by Package Manager

A list of common use cases that are implemented across various package managers.

Use Case / Package Manager	Alpine (APK)	Cargo	Carvel	Helm	Maven	npm	OCI	PyPi	rpm
List of Packages	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🔴*	🟢	⚪
Filter a List of Packages	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🔴	🟡	⚪
List versions	🔴	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🟡*	🟢	⚪
De-dupability	🟡	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🟢	🟢	⚪
Multi-Arch Support	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🟢	🟢	⚪
Dependency Tracking	🟢	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🟢	🟢	⚪
<use-case>	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	⚪	🟡	⚪

Use Case Details

TODO:

• Capture the differences between the client and the server. For example, putting the burden on the client to do filtering doesn't scale more than dozen packages.

List of Packages

The package manager provides a means to list the all the packages. The client can page through results, and may implement client side filtering, however a package manager with thousands of packages may not scale well, requiring server side filtering.

Filter a List of Packages

The package manager accepts filtering parameters to limit the list of packages to match some criteria.

List Versions

The package manager provides an API, listing the versions.

De-dupability

The package manager has the ability to efficiently, and securely store duplicate elements of different packages within the service. The client has the ability to pull unique elements of a package, making the GET of a package more efficient.

Multi-Architecture Support

The package manager provides a means to query for a package, specific to a OS Platform and architecture.

Dependency Tracking

TODO:

...for package manager lifecycle management.

• Can the server track the dependencies of a specific package?
• Can the server track cross package dependencies?