Three nouns: feed, package, package version. A feed is the catalogue (the artefact server). A package is a named artefact (Checkout.Web). A package version is a specific build of that package (Checkout.Web 2026.5.17).
The flow
CI publishes a package version to a feed. The Jaws Deploy project has a step that references the package by name. When a release is created, the release picks a specific version of that package - either the latest, or one provided by CI. The release is now locked to that version forever.
// Built-in feed
When to use it
When you don't already have an artefact server. Push packages directly to Jaws Deploy. One less moving part.
// External feed
When to use it
When CI already publishes to NuGet, Artifactory, Azure Artifacts, S3, or similar. Register it as an external feed and reference packages by name and version.
What package formats are supported
Zip archives, tarballs, and NuGet packages all work as deployment packages. The deployment step extracts the package on the target before running post-deploy hooks. Container images are a different shape - they're typically deployed by a step that calls a container orchestrator rather than by extracting onto a target.