Salesforce DX Developer Guide

How Salesforce Developer Experience Changes the Way You Work
Salesforce CLI Configuration and Tips
Project Setup
Authorization
Metadata Coverage
Scratch Orgs
Sandboxes
Development
Build and Release Your App
First-Generation Managed Packages
Second-Generation Managed Packages
Unlocked Packages
What’s a Package
Package-Based Development Model
Before You Create Unlocked Packages
Know Your Orgs
Workflow for Unlocked Packages
Configure Packages
Create a Package
Install a Package
Migrate Deprecated Metadata from Unlocked Packages
Uninstall a Package
Continuous Integration
Troubleshoot Salesforce DX
Limitations for Salesforce DX
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What’s a Package

If you’re new to packaging, you can think about a package as a container that you fill with metadata. It contains a set of related features, customizations, and schema. You use packages to move metadata from one Salesforce org to another.

Each unlocked package has a distinct life cycle. You add metadata to a package, and create a new package version. While the package is continually evolving, each a package version is an immutable artifact.

A package version contains the specific metadata and features associated with the package version, at the time it was created. As you iterate on your package, and add, remove, or change the packaged metadata, you create many package versions.

You can install a package version in a scratch, sandbox, trial, developer edition, or production org. Installing a package version is similar to deploying metadata. Each package version has a version number, and subscribers can install a new package version into their org through a package upgrade.

Since package versions are immutable, they can also be used as artifacts for Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) processes.

Note

You can repeat the package development cycle any number of times. You can change metadata, create a package version, test the package version, and finally deploy or install the package to a production org. This distinct app development lifecycle lets you control exactly what, when and how your metadata is rolled out. In the installed org, you can inspect which metadata came from which package and the set of all metadata associated with a specific package.