For handling dependencies and creating Python packages, Poetry is a great choice. Poetry’s build command can generate source and wheel distributions. The wheel is a pre-built distribution format containing files and metadata, which only need to be moved to the target system to be installed. On the other hand, source (or sdist) distribution still requires a build step before it is usable. But can these formats be directly utilized in production?

When working with dependencies one commonly asked question is how to specify the dependencies in the package files (pyproject.toml, Gemfile, package.json, etc.), and why one would need lock files (poetry.lock, Gemfile.lock, package-lock.json). In this article, we will explore how dependency management can be easy and painless. Let’s dive in!