How to configure for deployment as a package that users run on their machine?

[arthur-shaw]

Recently, I created a simple golem app that I want to deploy as a package (i.e., user installs it and runs it locally on their machine). However, I could not figure out how to configure the app so that it would fetch golem-config.yml from the directory in which it's installed (i.e., the package directory in the user's R library directory). Are there configuration settings with this use case in mind? If not configuration settings, is there a natural, elegant, or sensible ways to achieve this from within the golem framework?

See an issue here on the app's repo that tries to summarize the issue and that sketches my current kludgy solution.

For more context, here's the error I see if I run the installed package. Rather than look for the config in my golem app, golem is looking for it in the golem package folder. From there, golem looks to be attempting to copy that template config file to the working directory in which I'm running the app.

[VincentGuyader]

hi,

Thank you for your message. If it's indeed a confirmed bug, it's indeed very problematic! May I ask you to specify the version of Golem being used? We will look into this promptly.

[VincentGuyader]

can you please send me your sessionInfo() ?

and also i dont understand why you have to do this :

setwd(system.file(package = "ApproveReject"))

[arthur-shaw]

Many thanks for the extremely rapid reply.

I'm new to deploying Shiny with golem and thought I was missing something about how to configure a golem app for my use case (i.e., as a package installed by the user and run on their local machine).

Here are answers to the questions you posed.

can you please send me your sessionInfo() ?

r$> sessionInfo()
R version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31 ucrt)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 11 x64 (build 22631)

Matrix products: default


locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

time zone: America/New_York
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods       
[7] base

other attached packages:
[1] ApproveReject_0.0.0.9000

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] graphql_1.5.1       bslib_0.6.1         htmlwidgets_1.6.4      
 [4] devtools_2.4.5      remotes_2.5.0       vctrs_0.6.5
 [7] tools_4.3.2         generics_0.1.3      curl_5.2.1
[10] tibble_3.2.1        fansi_1.0.6         pkgconfig_2.0.3        
[13] desc_1.4.3          readxl_1.4.3        assertthat_0.2.1   
[16] lifecycle_1.0.4     compiler_4.3.2      stringr_1.5.1
[19] brio_1.1.4          fontawesome_0.5.2   golem_0.4.1
[22] httpuv_1.6.14       htmltools_0.5.7     usethis_2.2.3
[25] sass_0.4.9          yaml_2.3.8          later_1.3.2
[28] pillar_1.9.0        jquerylib_0.1.4     urlchecker_1.0.1       
[31] tidyr_1.3.1         ellipsis_0.3.2      cachem_1.0.8
[34] sessioninfo_1.2.2   mime_0.12           tidyselect_1.2.1       
[37] digest_0.6.35       stringi_1.8.3       dplyr_1.1.4        
[40] purrr_1.0.2         rprojroot_2.0.4     fastmap_1.1.1
[43] cli_3.6.2           fuzzyjoin_0.1.6     magrittr_2.0.3
[46] bsicons_0.1.2       crul_1.4.0          pkgbuild_1.4.4
[49] utf8_1.2.4          withr_3.0.0         promises_1.2.1
[52] rappdirs_0.3.3      ghql_0.1.0          httr_1.4.7
[55] config_0.3.2        cellranger_1.1.0    susoreview_0.1.0       
[58] memoise_2.0.1       shiny_1.8.0         testthat_3.2.1
[61] gargoyle_0.0.1      miniUI_0.1.1.1      profvis_0.3.8
[64] rlang_1.1.3         Rcpp_1.0.12         xtable_1.8-4
[67] glue_1.7.0          httpcode_0.3.0      shinyFeedback_0.4.0    
[70] pkgload_1.3.4       attempt_0.3.1       rstudioapi_0.15.0      
[73] susoapi_0.2.0       jsonlite_1.8.8      R6_2.5.1
[76] fs_1.6.3

and also i dont understand why you have to do this :

setwd(system.file(package = "ApproveReject"))

There may be a better way, but I'm not currently seeing it.

My expectations were. The user would:

• Install my golem app (as a package)
• Run it

Then, golem would:

• Automagically locate golem-config.yml in the directory for my golem app in the user's R library directory.
• Run the app using that config. (Note: in my case, the config is simply the template that ships with golem. No config params matter for my use case.)

Unfortunately, my expectations for golem appear to be wrong. In particular, when run by a user, golem looks for the golem-config.yml in the golem package's inst directory of the user's R library directory. Also, golem tries to copy that file to the inst directory of the user's working directory. That latter folder doesn't exist.

To coerce the run_app() function to look for the golem-config.yml in the right place, I use setwd(system.file(package = "ApproveReject")) to change the working directory from the user's default to the directory where my app is installed in the user's R library.

As an alternative, I considered modifying app_sys() to be something like this:

app_sys <- function(...) {
  system.file(..., package = "ApproveReject", lib.loc = .libPaths()[1])
}

However, that doesn't seem to do the trick.

Also, I didn't immediately see any option in run_app() that would redirect the golem's search to the user's local library.

[ColinFay]

See my answer & PR on the repo 🤘