Framework

An R package for structured, reproducible data analysis projects.

Status: Active development. APIs may change before version 1.0.

Quick Start

# Install from GitHub
remotes::install_github("table1/framework")

# One-time global setup (author info, preferences)
framework::setup()

# Create projects using your saved defaults
framework::new()
framework::new("my-analysis", "~/projects/my-analysis")
framework::new_presentation("quarterly-review", "~/talks/q4")
framework::new_course("stats-101", "~/teaching/stats")

Project Types

• project (default): Full-featured research projects with notebooks, scripts, organized data management, and documentation
• project_sensitive: Like project, but with additional privacy protections for sensitive data
• course: Teaching materials with slides, assignments, and modules
• presentation: Single talks with one Quarto file and minimal setup

Example project structure:

project/
├── notebooks/              # Exploratory analysis
├── scripts/                # Production pipelines
├── inputs/
│   ├── raw/                # Raw data (gitignored)
│   ├── intermediate/       # Cleaned datasets (gitignored)
│   ├── final/              # Curated analytic datasets (gitignored)
│   └── reference/          # External documentation (gitignored)
├── outputs/
│   ├── private/            # Tables, figures, models, cache (gitignored)
│   └── public/             # Share-ready artifacts
├── functions/              # Custom functions
├── docs/                   # Documentation
├── settings.yml            # Project configuration
├── framework.db            # Metadata tracking database
└── .env                    # Secrets (gitignored)

Why Framework?

Framework reduces boilerplate and enforces best practices:

• Project scaffolding: Standardized directories, config-driven setup
• Data management: Declarative data catalog, integrity tracking, encryption
• Auto-loading: Load packages with one command; no more scattered library() calls
• Pain-free renv: Reproducible package management without fighting renv
• Caching: Smart caching for expensive computations
• Database helpers: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, MySQL with credential management
• File formats: CSV, TSV, RDS, Stata (.dta), SPSS (.sav), SAS (.xpt, .sas7bdat)

Core Workflow

1. Initialize Your Session

library(framework)
scaffold()  # Loads packages, functions, config, standardizes working directory

2. Create Notebooks & Scripts

# Quarto notebook (default)
make_notebook("exploration")    # → notebooks/exploration.qmd
make_qmd("analysis")            # Always Quarto
make_rmd("report")              # RMarkdown

# Presentations
make_revealjs("slides")         # reveal.js presentation

# Scripts
make_script("process-data")     # → scripts/process-data.R

# List available templates
stubs_list()

Custom stubs: Create a stubs/ directory with your own templates.

3. Load Data

Via config (recommended):

# settings.yml
data:
  inputs:
    raw:
      survey:
        path: inputs/raw/survey.csv
        type: csv
        locked: true  # Errors if file changes

df <- data_load("inputs.raw.survey")

Direct path:

df <- data_load("inputs/raw/my_file.csv")       # CSV
df <- data_load("inputs/raw/stata_file.dta")    # Stata
df <- data_load("inputs/raw/spss_file.sav")     # SPSS

Every read is logged with a SHA-256 hash for integrity tracking.

4. Cache Expensive Operations

model <- get_or_cache("model_v1", {
  expensive_model_fit(df)
}, expire_after = 1440)  # 24 hours

5. Save Results

Save data files:

data_save(processed_df, "intermediate.cleaned_data")
# → saves to inputs/intermediate/cleaned_data.rds

data_save(final_df, "final.analysis_ready", type = "csv")
# → saves to inputs/final/analysis_ready.csv

Save analysis outputs:

result_save("regression_model", model, type = "model")
result_save("report", file = "report.html", type = "notebook", blind = TRUE)

6. Query Databases

# settings.yml
connections:
  db:
    driver: postgresql
    host: env("DB_HOST")
    database: env("DB_NAME")
    user: env("DB_USER")
    password: env("DB_PASS")

df <- query_get("SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = true", "db")

Enhanced Data Viewing

view_detail() provides rich, browser-based data exploration:

view_detail(mtcars)                    # Interactive table with search/filter/export
view_detail(config)                    # Tabbed YAML + R structure for lists
view_detail(ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, hp)) + geom_point())  # Interactive plots

Configuration

Simple:

default:
  packages:
    - dplyr
    - ggplot2
  data:
    example: data/example.csv

Advanced (split files):

default:
  data: settings/data.yml
  packages: settings/packages.yml
  connections: settings/connections.yml

Secrets in .env:

DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PASS=secret

Reference in config:

connections:
  db:
    host: env("DB_HOST")
    password: env("DB_PASS", "default")

AI Assistant Support

Framework creates instruction files for AI coding assistants:

framework::configure_ai_agents()

Supported: Claude Code (CLAUDE.md), GitHub Copilot, AGENTS.md

Key Functions

Function	Purpose
scaffold()	Initialize session (load packages, functions, config)
data_load()	Load data from path or config
data_save()	Save data with integrity tracking
view_detail()	Browser-based data viewer with search/export
query_get()	Execute SQL query, return data
query_execute()	Execute SQL command
get_or_cache()	Lazy evaluation with caching
result_save()	Save analysis output
result_get()	Retrieve saved result
scratch_capture()	Quick debug/temp file save
renv_enable()	Enable renv for reproducibility
packages_snapshot()	Save package versions to renv.lock
packages_restore()	Restore packages from renv.lock
security_audit()	Scan for data leaks and security issues

Data Integrity & Security

• Hash tracking: All data files tracked with SHA-256 hashes
• Locked data: Flag files as read-only, errors on modification
• Password-based encryption: Ansible Vault-style encryption for sensitive data
• Gitignore by default: Private directories auto-ignored
• Security audits: security_audit() detects data leaks

Encryption

# Save encrypted data
data_save(sensitive_df, "private.data", encrypted = TRUE)

# Load (auto-detects encryption)
data <- data_load("private.data")

Password from ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD env var or interactive prompt.

Security Auditing

audit <- security_audit()              # Full audit
audit <- security_audit(auto_fix = TRUE)  # Auto-fix .gitignore issues

Reproducibility with renv

Optional renv integration (off by default):

renv_enable()           # Enable for this project
packages_snapshot()     # Save current versions
packages_restore()      # Restore from renv.lock
renv_disable()          # Disable (keeps renv.lock)

Version pinning in settings.yml:

packages:
  - dplyr                    # Latest from CRAN
  - ggplot2@3.4.0           # Specific version
  - tidyverse/dplyr@main    # GitHub with branch

Roadmap

• Better database support (DuckDB, MySQL, SQL Server)
• Results publishing to S3
• Enhanced results tracking with blinding support