In my Defold In-Editor Asset Store, which currently have dependencies management, I also have a “assets” management (not public), which is designed for distribute just folders (widgets, particles, shaders etc)
When download, currently I have a solution that version file is created and stored in this asset folder to check for future updates
Seems it can be modified in the way to manage dependencies in the same way, where instead of game.project dependencies links will be downloaded folders with a version to manage them for future. Everything will be stored locally, free to update that code (but all this changes will be lost after update in future seems) and build & load project faster (no network checks).
Sound like a good option to have in future and for this case also with LLM
About manual copy dependencies folder - you can just select a dependency folder at Assets Pane, use copy/paste and it will create a real folder for you. Sometimes it’s pretty convenient