[Linting Rule] Dependency Declaration

Generated from 'wiki-linter.ts' on 2026-10-25, 09:29:25 UTC (v2.16.6), do not edit directly.

Dependency Declaration ^[overview]

This rule ports the following steps of R CMD check (see the conformance table for the legend):

#	Step	Coverage	Note
27	package dependencies (book)	🔷	availability and versions asked of the signature database instead of the repositories
28	dependencies in R code (book)	🟩⭐	⭐ also resolves package names through variables and knows the loaders of other packages
29	for unstated dependencies in tests (book)	🟩
30	for unstated dependencies in examples (book)	🟩
31	for unstated dependencies in vignettes (book)	🟩⭐	⭐ also packages named in \VignetteEngine
32	whether the package can be loaded with stated dependencies (book)	🔷
33	whether the namespace can be loaded with stated dependencies (book)	🔷
53	examples (book)	🔷⭐	⭐ also T and F in the examples parses the examples and checks what they call, without running them
77	whether package can be installed (book)	🔷⭐	⭐ also compiled code never loaded for lack of useDynLib useDynLib and src/ in agreement, headers from LinkingTo, undefined exports
83	tests (book)	🔷⭐	⭐ also testthat tests without a runner, runners testing another package tests are not run, only checked for runners and syntax
85	running R code from vignettes (book)	🔷	vignette code that does not parse
88	examples with --run-donttest (book)	🔷⭐	⭐ also T and F in the examples the \donttest code is checked like all examples

This rule is a best-effort rule.

Finds packages the code, tests, examples, or vignettes use without the DESCRIPTION declaring them, Imports nothing imports from, library() calls in package code, own ::: calls, and undeclared VignetteBuilder or RdMacros packages. Package names are resolved through variables.
This linting rule is implemented in src/linter/rules/cmd-check/dependency-declaration.ts.

Configuration

Linting rules can be configured by passing a configuration object to the linter query as shown in the example below. The dependency-declaration rule accepts the following configuration options:

• checkAvailability
  report declared packages the signature database does not know or cannot satisfy, which R CMD check asks the repositories about (default true)
  R CMD check #27
• checkOtherCode
  check the packages the tests, vignettes, and examples use (default true)
  R CMD check #29, #30, #31
• headerOnlyPackages
  packages that only provide C/C++ headers and hence belong into LinkingTo, a note R CMD check gives for CRAN submissions (default BH, RcppArmadillo, RcppEigen)
  R CMD check #27
• ignoreWithin
  functions whose arguments run elsewhere, so the packages loaded there are no dependency of the package (default clusterEvalQ)
  R CMD check #28
• reportDependsNotImported
  report packages in Depends the NAMESPACE imports nothing from, a note R CMD check only gives for CRAN submissions (default false)
  R CMD check #28
• reportLibraryCalls
  report every library/require call in package code, even for declared packages (default true, as R CMD check)
  R CMD check #28

Examples

A project with the code R/code.R:

f <- function(df) {
	library(dplyr)
	tidyr::drop_na(df)
}

and the files

DESCRIPTION:

Package: pkg
Version: 1.0
Title: A Package
License: MIT

The linting query can be used to run this rule on the above example:

[ { "type": "linter",   "rules": [ { "name": "dependency-declaration",     "config": {} } ] } ]

Results (prettified and summarized):

Query: linter (8 ms)
   ╰ Dependency Declaration (dependency-declaration):
       ╰ certain:
           ╰ undeclared-attach of dplyr at /pkg/R/code.R:2.2-15
           ╰ library-in-package of dplyr at /pkg/R/code.R:2.2-15
           ╰ undeclared-namespace of tidyr at /pkg/R/code.R:3.2-19

More examples are the test cases in test/functionality/linter/cmd-check/lint-dependency-declaration.test.ts.