diff --git a/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py b/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6fc996810cbb1686824e25cde5f91e7a0a42fb91
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/visionary-dls-core/package.py
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+# Copyright 2013-2019 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and other
+# Spack Project Developers. See the top-level COPYRIGHT file for details.
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: (Apache-2.0 OR MIT)
+
+from spack import *
+
+
+class VisionaryDlsCore(Package):
+    """Core package that contains dependencies of the core DLS software
+    ONLY!"""
+
+    homepage = ''
+    # some random tarball, to make `spack fetch --dependencies visionary-defaults` work
+    url = 'https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz'
+
+    # This is only a dummy tarball (see difference between version numbers)
+    # TODO: as soon as a MetaPackage-concept has been merged, please update this package
+    version('1.0', '372ce038842f20bf0ae02de50c26e85d', url='https://github.com/electronicvisions/spack/archive/v0.8.tar.gz')
+
+    # Depend on visionary-nux to enable joint developement of host and PPU code with one meta package
+    depends_on('visionary-nux ~dev')
+
+    # depends_on('libusb-1.0')  external dependency
+    depends_on('bear')
+    depends_on('bitsery')
+    depends_on('boost@1.69.0: +graph+icu+mpi+python+numpy+coroutine+context+valgrind cxxstd=17')
+    depends_on('cereal')
+    depends_on('cppcheck')
+    depends_on('doxygen+graphviz')
+    depends_on('genpybind@visions')
+    depends_on('gflags')
+    depends_on('googletest+gmock')
+    # depends_on('icarus')
+    depends_on('intel-tbb')  # ppu gdbserver
+    depends_on('libelf')
+    depends_on('liblockfile')
+    depends_on('llvm')
+    depends_on('log4cxx')
+    depends_on('munge')
+    depends_on('pkg-config')
+    depends_on('py-matplotlib')
+    depends_on('py-nose')
+    depends_on('py-numpy')
+    depends_on('py-pybind11')
+    depends_on('py-pybind11-stubgen')
+    depends_on('py-pycodestyle')
+    depends_on('py-pyelftools')
+    depends_on('py-pylint')
+    depends_on('py-pynn')
+    depends_on('py-python-usbtmc')
+    depends_on('py-scipy')
+    depends_on('py-sqlalchemy')
+    depends_on('util-linux') # from lib-rcf
+    depends_on('yaml-cpp+shared')
+
+    ##################
+    # Current fixups #
+    ##################
+    # intel-mkldnn depends on intel-mkl which also provides blas ->
+    # concretization error -> reinvestigate when needed
+    depends_on('py-torch ~mkldnn')
+
+    # we only support Python 3.7+!
+    depends_on('python@3.7.0:')
+
+    # xilinx runtime dependencies
+    depends_on('visionary-xilinx')
+
+    def install(self, spec, prefix):
+        mkdirp(prefix.etc)
+        # store a copy of this package.
+        install(__file__, join_path(prefix.etc, spec.name + '.py'))
+
+        # we could create some filesystem view here?