package archive / old versions for renv

[pfuehrlich-pik]

At the moment only the most recent version of each package is available via r-universe. For tools like renv old package versions are needed as well. Is it possible to setup a universe in a way that supports such a package archive or is this planned in the near future?

Thanks for the great work! Especially the binary builds have already helped us at PIK. We would like to switch to r-universe entirely and get rid of our own package server, but we also want to use renv...

[jeroen]

Currently we don't plan to archive all the versions and binaries, but we do plan to support some other things, like making snapshots of a universe.

We also try to support renv by adding the upstream package git repo and hash in the pkg DESCRIPTION file, just like when the package is installed using install_github(). Hopefully renv will be able to use this information to restore old versions of r-universe packages by getting them directly from git(hub). But I haven't tested this myself yet.

[pfuehrlich-pik]

Unfortunately renv does not use the git repo and hash from the DESCRIPTION file, I just checked. If a packaged was installed from a "Repository" (in renv terms that's CRAN and r-universe but not GitHub) git repo and hash are not stored in renv.lock. renv::restore is using only the renv.lock to restore all packages. Here's a sample renv.lock with a package installed from r-universe and a package installed from GitHub:

{
  "R": {
    "Version": "4.1.1",
    "Repositories": [
      {
        "Name": "pikpiam",
        "URL": "https://pik-piam.r-universe.dev"
      },
      {
        "Name": "CRAN",
        "URL": "https://cran.rstudio.com"
      }
    ]
  },
  "Packages": {
    "gdxtools": {
      "Package": "gdxtools",
      "Version": "0.6.0",
      "Source": "GitHub",
      "RemoteType": "github",
      "RemoteHost": "api.github.com",
      "RemoteUsername": "lolow",
      "RemoteRepo": "gdxtools",
      "RemoteRef": "master",
      "RemoteSha": "94b3509ba341a8eb75543bdb5dee75fe2a8b6348"
    },
    "remulator": {
      "Package": "remulator",
      "Version": "1.18.1",
      "Source": "Repository"
    },
    "renv": {
      "Package": "renv",
      "Version": "0.14.0",
      "Source": "Repository",
      "Repository": "CRAN",
      "Hash": "30e5eba91b67f7f4d75d31de14bbfbdc"
    }
  }
}

[pfuehrlich-pik]

There a some issues on the renv repository about r-universe compatibility, so maybe someone is already working on it:
rstudio/renv#789
rstudio/renv#786
rstudio/renv#774

[jeroen]

OK yes maybe I should talk to @kevinushey. I was hoping that because all R-universe packages contain the RemoteUrl and RemoteRef and RemoteSha fields now in the DESCRIPTION, renv would naturally be able to restore them, just like when the package was installed from git directly. But maybe it's not that simple.

I think indeed the issue to track is rstudio/renv#789