SFDX Remove packages dependencies from repository

Question

An sfdx project was gave it to me from a repository, with the request of deploy it in a Development sandbox and start to test it with scratch orgs. The command: force:source:deploy fails with this firsts lines in output:

force-app/main/default/settings/SocialCustomerService.settings-meta.xml                                                                                                                   Not available for deploy for this organization
force-app/main/default/settings/MapsAndLocation.settings-meta.xml                                                                                                                         Not available for deploy for this organization
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/wbsendit.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                               Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/GetFeedback_Aut.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                        Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/relateiq.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                               Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/sf_chttr_apps.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                          Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/SCSConnectedApp.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                        Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/sf_com_apps.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                            Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/Dropbox_for_SF.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                         Required field is missing: activateRSS
force-app/main/default/installedPackages/SocialService.installedPackage-meta.xml                                                                                                          Required field is missing: activateRSS

After check on the folder installedPackages, I can see several packages installed

My question here is: What are my choices?

1. It is possible to remove this packages dependencies rigth from the source? How can do this?
2. This kind of project could only be deployed to a scratch org from the production Dev Hub?
3. Accordingly to my understanding, packages like social customer services are not available in dev orgs, it's is true?

Thank you very much in advance for any guidance you can provide me.

Answer 1

InstalledPackage

Your installed package metadata is out of date relative to your API version. The activateRSS key is required in InstalledPackage metadata post API version 43.0; see the Metadata API reference.

You can manually add this key to the XML source of the installedPackage-meta.xml files.

Settings Entities

Metadata API Settings entities won't deploy to orgs that don't have access to the accompanying feature. I am not closely familiar with the licensing or edition restrictions for the two features mentioned here. You may be able to safely remove them, if your source code does not depend upon changes they introduce to the org's shape.

General Questions

It is possible to remove this packages dependencies rigth from the source? How can do this?

Possibly. It depends on whether the other metadata in your project includes references to any packaged components from these managed packages. Such metadata will fail to deploy if its dependency is not present, so you can figure it out by trial and error, but it'll take a lot of fiddling with different combinations of the managed packages to locate the absolute minimal installation.

This kind of project could only be deployed to a scratch org from the production Dev Hub?

Deployments to a scratch org are from the source code, which is the source of truth in the SFDX development model. You can't deploy directly from one org to another with scratch orgs (they're not change set destinations).

You may or may not be able to deploy source pulled from production to a scratch org without further configuration. It depends heavily on the extent to which the source relies on specific feature configuration and other aspects of the "shape" of production. Some of those features (like Person Accounts or Multicurrency) can be created in the scratch org by altering its definition file, while others require different kinds of build automation to achieve (like OWDs on standard objects).

Accordingly to my understanding, packages like social customer services are not available in dev orgs, it's is true?

I'm not an expert in that feature. It is not available in my developer org but I don't know much about its licensure or scratch org availability.

Answer 2

If the dependencies are not required in your sources, you can use SFDX Essentials to remove the dependencies from SFDX files

https://github.com/nvuillam/sfdx-essentials#essentialschange-dependency-version

Example with FinServ package:

$ sfdx essentials:change-dependency-version -n FinServ -r