An Azure Artifacts package type for arbitrary files outside any language ecosystem. You push them with the Azure CLI or a pipeline task, and versions follow SemVer minus build metadata.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Universal Packages in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Azure Artifacts
Hosts Universal Packages, Cargo, Maven/Gradle, Python, npm and NuGet packages for Azure DevOps teams, in feeds that can draw on upstreams. Container images go elsewhere; GitHub Packages is the GitHub counterpart.
- Real-time streaming semantic model
Covers live-fed push, streaming and PubNub models, plus streaming dashboard tiles. Microsoft now steers people towards Real-Time Intelligence in Fabric, as these are being retired and new ones can only be made until 31 October 2027.
- Azure CLI
Command-line tool for managing Azure that runs on any platform; examples include
az login,az storage queueandaz policy state trigger-scan. - Pipeline
Groups activities logically so that, together, they move and transform data, either one after another or side by side; found in both Azure Data Factory and Microsoft Fabric.
- Semantic Versioning
Numbers releases as Major.Minor.Patch, optionally followed by a pre-release label or build metadata. Fixes raise patch, backwards-compatible features raise minor and breaking changes raise major. Universal Packages reject build metadata.
- Metadata
Describes data rather than being the data itself, for instance how a file is laid out or what rows each chunk contains, so tools can read things efficiently.