Using auth_token to install package dependencies

[kieran-mace]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Devtools does not successfully install private package dependencies.

Lets say I have two packages as subdirectories in a monorepo:

/r/PackageA
/r/PackageB

And PackageB depends on PackageA

If I run:

devtools::install_github(repo = 'organization/monorepo',
                         subdir = 'r/PackageA',
                         auth_token = 'my_private_token')

Things work as expected. Package A does not depend on Package B. Everything works fine.

However:

If I try to install PackageB:

devtools::install_github(repo = 'organization/monorepo',
                         subdir = 'r/PackageB',
                         auth_token = 'my_private_token')

Which has PackageA as a dependency. It fails with:

Downloading GitHub repo picnichealth/organization@HEAD
Error: Failed to install 'PackageB' from GitHub:
  HTTP error 404.
  Not Found

  Did you spell the repo owner (`organization`) and repo name (`monorepo`) correctly?
  - If spelling is correct, check that you have the required permissions to access the repo.

What's actually happening here is that the target package, PackageB, is being pulled correctly, but devtools is not able to use the same token again to pull down its dependency PackageA.

This can be verified by calling devtools::install_deps.

This issue can be circumvented by adding GITHUB_PAT variable in your ~/.Renviron file

Describe the solution you'd like

I would like for auth_token to be available for primary package install AND its dependent packages

Describe alternatives you've considered

adding GITHUB_PAT variable to my ~/.Renviron file

[jennybc]

Package installation is actually accomplished via the remotes package. So I'm transferring this there.