A suggested layout for an RPM or a DEB package which installs a masterless puppet module named 'foo'.

building it

#!/bin/sh

if ! which fpm
then
    # I hope you have ruby gems installed
    gem install fpm
fi

mkdir pkg
mkdir -p pkg/usr/share/puppet/masterless
mv foo.pp pkg/usr/share/puppet/masterless
mkdir -p pkg/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/manifests
mv init.pp pkg/usr/share/puppet/foo/manifests
mkdir -p pkg/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/files
mv hello pkg/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/files
cd pkg
tar czf foo.tar.gz $(ls -A)

# If you're on an enterprise linux machine:
fpm -s tar -t rpm -n puppet-masterless-foo -v 0.1 --iteration 1 -d puppet foo.tar.gz 
# Or, if you're on a debian based machine:
fpm -s tar -t deb -n puppet-masterless-foo -v 0.1 --iteration 1 -d puppet foo.tar.gz

foo.pp

include foo

hello

Hello world

init.pp

class foo {
  file {
    "/tmp/hello":
      ensure => file,
      source => "puppet:///modules/foo/hello";
  }
}

Masterless RPM or DEB Puppet Module Files List

/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo
/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/manifests
/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/manifests/init.pp
/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/files
/usr/share/puppet/modules/foo/files/hello
/usr/share/puppet/masterless/foo.pp

running it

# /usr/share/puppet/modules is usually the default puppet module directory,
# so the '--modulepath' argument previously written here is omitted below
$ puppet apply /usr/share/puppet/masterless/foo.pp 
notice: /Stage[main]/Foo/File[/tmp/hello]/ensure: defined content as '{md5}f0ef7081e1539ac00ef5b761b4fb01b3'

What do you think, @jordansissel ?