useR! 2024

One of the challenges for R developers is ensuring that their packages work correctly on an ever-increasing number of operating systems, platforms, and R versions. To aid in this endeavor, we are introducing two tools: Locksmith and Scribe. Their task is to install a cohort of R packages, along with all dependencies, and test the cohort on any kind of system. Locksmith resolves all dependencies of the cohort using provided package repositories and saves the list of all package versions and repositories to a snapshot. Scribe utilizes the snapshot to download, build, install, and check the packages in an efficient and reproducible manner. An older snapshot of packages can be restored by scribe on a new system to check for any compatibility issues. Both tools are written in Go, making their binaries easily buildable and distributable for different systems and platforms. Go also simplifies concurrent package installation and checking, significantly reducing execution time. As a result, package cohort testing can be performed frequently for various systems, allowing developers to quickly assess the overall health of their packages.