Awesome R package development

A curated list of awesome tools to assist R 📦 development.

Note before:

• Not all tools are available on CRAN; some might be available only via GitHub or GitLab.
• Only tools helpful for package development are included, and not other resources (like books, talks, presentations, etc.).

If you wish to suggest any additional tools, please make a PR request or raise an issue here: https://github.com/IndrajeetPatil/awesome-r-pkgtools

Please note that the awesome-r-pkgtools project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.

Swiss army knives 🛠

Tools (including their hard dependencies) useful across all stages of package development.

• {devtools}: https://devtools.r-lib.org/

• {usethis}: https://usethis.r-lib.org/

• {pacs} : https://polkas.github.io/pacs/index.html

Package skeletons 💀

• {pkgkitten}: https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/code/pkgkitten.html

• {rcompendium}: https://frbcesab.github.io/rcompendium/

• {fusen}: https://thinkr-open.github.io/fusen/ ({rmarkdown}-based)

• {pkgverse}: https://pkgverse.mikewk.com/ (for package universe)

Naming things 🧸

• {available}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/available/index.html (to check if a package name is available to use)

• {collidr}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/collidr/ (to check for namespace collisions)

Documentation 📚

Manual

• {roxygen2}: https://roxygen2.r-lib.org/

• {Rd2roxygen}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rd2roxygen/index.html (in case you inherit a project where documentation was not written using {roxygen2})

• {sinew}: https://yonicd.github.io/sinew/ (generate {roxygen2} skeletons)

• {roclang}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/roclang/ (helpers for diffusing of content across function documentation)

• {Rdpack}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rdpack/index.html (for inserting references, figures, and evaluated examples in Rd docs)

• {roxygen2md}: https://roxygen2md.r-lib.org/ (using Markdown syntax in package documentation)

• {rd2list}: https://github.com/coolbutuseless/rd2list (converts Rd docs to a human-readable list)

• roxygen2Comment: https://github.com/csgillespie/roxygen2Comment (Rstudio addin for adding and remove {roxygen2} comment)

Math in manual

• {katex}: https://docs.ropensci.org/katex/

• {mathjaxr}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/mathjaxr/index.html

Vignettes

• {knitr}: https://yihui.org/knitr/

• {rmarkdown}: https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/

• {prettydoc}: https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/prettydoc/index.html (creates lightweight yet pretty vignettes)

Lifecycle

• {lifecycle}: https://lifecycle.r-lib.org/index.html

Website

• {pkgdown}: https://pkgdown.r-lib.org/ (static website for package documentation)

• {gitdown}: https://github.com/ThinkR-open/gitdown (software changes as a gitbook)

Badges and stickers

• {badger}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/badger/index.html

• {hexSticker}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/hexSticker/index.html

• hexwall: https://github.com/mitchelloharawild/hexwall (to create a wall of hexstickers)

Presentation

• {xaringan}: https://github.com/yihui/xaringan

Documentation quality ✒️

• {docreview}: https://thisisnic.github.io/docreview/ (to check quality of docs)

• {spelling}: https://docs.ropensci.org/spelling/ (to spell check)

• {gramr}: https://github.com/jasdumas/gramr (for grammar suggestions)

Unit testing 🧪

• {testthat}: https://testthat.r-lib.org/

• {vdiffr}: https://vdiffr.r-lib.org/ (visual regression testing)

• {mockthat}: https://nbenn.github.io/mockthat/ (function mocking for unit testing to third-party packages)

• {roxytest}: https://github.com/mikldk/roxytest (inline {testthat} tests with {roxygen2})

• {exampletestr}: https://rorynolan.github.io/exampletestr/ (tests based on package examples)

• {shinytest}: https://rstudio.github.io/shinytest/ (testing Shiny apps)

• {testdown}: https://github.com/ThinkR-open/testdown (turn {testthat} results into a {bookdown} project)

• {autotest}: https://docs.ropensci.org/autotest/

• {tinytest}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tinytest/index.html

• {testit}: https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/testit/index.html

• {testthis}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/testthis/

• {xpectr}: https://github.com/LudvigOlsen/xpectr

• {unitizer}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/unitizer/index.html

• {r-hedgehog}: https://github.com/hedgehogqa/r-hedgehog (property based testing)

Code analysis 🗂⏱

General

• {goodpractice}: http://mangothecat.github.io/goodpractice/ (Swiss army knife for good practices)

Code coverage

• {covr}: https://covr.r-lib.org/ (computes code coverage)

• {covrpage}: https://yonicd.github.io/covrpage/ (provides summary README of code coverage and corresponding tests)

Lint detection

• {lintr}: https://github.com/jimhester/lintr

• {roger}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/roger/index.html

• {cleanr}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/cleanr/index.html

Code similarity

• {dupree}: https://github.com/russHyde/dupree

Benchmarking and profiling

• {bench}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/bench/index.html

• {profvis}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/profvis/index.html

Lines of code

• {cloc}: https://github.com/hrbrmstr/cloc

Formatting R code 🧽

• {styler}: https://styler.r-lib.org/ (especially relevant if you follow {tidyverse} style guide)

• {formatR}: https://yihui.org/formatr/

• AlignAssign: https://github.com/seasmith/AlignAssign (RStudio addin)

Dependencies ⚖️

• {deepdep}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/deepdep/index.html (to visualize and explore package dependencies)

• {itdepends}: https://github.com/r-lib/itdepends (to assess usage, measure weights, visualize proportions, and assist removal of dependencies)

• {DependenciesGraphs}: https://github.com/datastorm-open/DependenciesGraphs (to visualize package dependencies)

• {functiondepends}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/functiondepends/

• {pkgndep}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/pkgndep/ (checks the heaviness of the packages used)

• {oysteR}: https://sonatype-nexus-community.github.io/oysteR/ (secure package against insecure dependencies)

• {attachment}: https://github.com/ThinkR-open/attachment

CRAN submission and status 📬

• {rhub}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rhub/index.html (to run R CMD check on CRAN architectures)

• {checkhelper}: https://thinkr-open.github.io/checkhelper/ (submission help)

• {foghorn}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/foghorn/index.html (check results and submission portal status)

• {urlchecker}: https://github.com/r-lib/urlchecker (URL checks)

Usage 🙈

• {cranlogs}: https://r-hub.github.io/cranlogs/ (computing CRAN download counts)

• {packageRank}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/packageRank/index.html (visualizing CRAN download counts)

CI/CD 📟

CI/CD: continuous integration and either continuous delivery or continuous deployment

• actions: https://github.com/r-lib/actions (for GitHub Actions)

• r-appveyor: https://github.com/krlmlr/r-appveyor (for AppVeyor)

• {tic}: https://docs.ropensci.org/tic/ (for Circle CI and GitHub Actions)

Debugging 🔭

• {debugme}: https://github.com/r-lib/debugme

• {debugr}:https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/debugr/

Input validation 🔬

• {checkmate}: https://mllg.github.io/checkmate/ (argument checks)

• {assertthat}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/assertthat/index.html

• {assertive}: https://www.r-pkg.org/pkg/assertive

• {pkgcond}: https://github.com/RDocTaskForce/pkgcond (better error messages for package users)

Package metadata 🖨

• {codemetar}: https://docs.ropensci.org/codemetar/

• {pkgapi}: https://github.com/r-lib/pkgapi

• {packagemetrics}: https://github.com/sfirke/packagemetrics (for comparing among packages)

• {devtoolbox}: https://martinctc.github.io/devtoolbox/index.html

• {pkgattrs}: https://rich-iannone.github.io/pkgattrs/

• {foreman}: https://github.com/yonicd/foreman

• {sessioninfo}: https://github.com/r-lib/sessioninfo

Reverse dependency checks 📡⚰️

• {revdepcheck}: https://r-lib.github.io/revdepcheck/

Docker container 🛍

• {containerit}: https://o2r.info/containerit/

• {usethat}: https://tidylab.github.io/usethat/

Gratitude 🙏💌

Thank the contributors or maintainers of packages you rely on.

• {thankr}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/thankr/index.html

• {allcontributors}: https://docs.ropensci.org/allcontributors/

Integration with other languages 🔗

C++

• {Rcpp}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rcpp/index.html

• {cpp11}: https://cpp11.r-lib.org/index.html

Python

• {reticulate}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/reticulate/index.html

Rust

• {hellorust}: https://github.com/r-rust/hellorust

.NET Framework

• {rClr}: https://github.com/rdotnet/rClr

JavaScript/HTML/CSS

• {htmltools}: https://rstudio.github.io/htmltools/reference/index.html#section-html-dependencies

Julia

• {JuliaCall}: https://non-contradiction.github.io/JuliaCall/index.html

Sundry 🗒

• {TODOr}: https://github.com/dokato/todor (RStudio addin to list things that you need to do or change)

• {prefixer}: https://github.com/dreamRs/prefixer (prefix function with their namespace )

• {gitignore}: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gitignore/index.html (to fetch gitignore templates)

• {touchstone}: https://lorenzwalthert.github.io/touchstone/ (benchmarking pull requests)