Packages are a simple and yet important concept in I/O Runtime. You can use packages to handle versioning (deploy new version of your actions in a new package), create different actions with the same name within the same namespace, group together actions that are related, share actions with other parties (shared packages) and much more.
You create a package running:
wsk package create my-fancy-package
When deleting an package, it will only work if the package is empty (no actions or triggers have been defined in it):
wsk package delete my-fancy-package
Another useful feature is defining default params at the package level. All the actions defined in that package will be able to read the default params. In this example a param called name is set, with the value some-value:
$ wsk package update my-fancy-package --param name some-value
Sharing a package (making it available to any other user of the system) is as simple as adding this flag shared:
$ wsk package update my-fancy-package --shared yes
If you want to use a shared package, you need first to bind it. In the following example, we bind my-fancy-package to a package called my-package. This enables you to invoke any action defined in the original namespace as being part of bound package.
$ wsk package bind /namespace-where-package-is-defined/my-fancy-package my-package
Shared packages enforce execute-only permission for any operation that is initiated from outside the namespace owning the package. Assuming there is a package my-package in namespace a, this package is shared, and there is a namespace b who uses the shared package, then:
my-package actions from namespace b or a will workmy-package code or edit it (update/delete) from namespace b will failmy-package (create/read/update/delete) will only work from namespace a