Configure different behaviors of renv.
Details
For a given configuration option:
If an R option of the form
renv.config.<name>is available, then that option's value will be used;If an environment variable of the form
RENV_CONFIG_<NAME>is available, then that option's value will be used;Otherwise, the default for that particular configuration value is used.
Any periods (.)s in the option name are transformed into underscores (_)
in the environment variable name, and vice versa. For example, the
configuration option auto.snapshot could be configured as:
options(renv.config.auto.snapshot = <...>)Sys.setenv(RENV_CONFIG_AUTO_SNAPSHOT = <...>)
Note that if both the R option and the environment variable are defined, the R option will be used instead. Environment variables can be more useful when you want a particular configuration to be automatically inherited by child processes; if that behavior is not desired, then the R option may be preferred.
If you want to set and persist these options across multiple projects, it is
recommended that you set them in a a startup .Renviron file; e.g. in your
own ~/.Renviron, or in the R installation's etc/Rprofile.site file. See
Startup for more details.
Configuration options can also be set within the project .Rprofile, but
be aware the options should be set before source("renv/activate.R") is
called.
Configuration
The following renv configuration options are available:
renv.config.activate.prompt
Automatically prompt the user to activate the current project, if it does not appear to already be activated? This is mainly useful to help ensure that calls to renv::snapshot() and renv::restore() use the project library. See ?renv::activate for more details.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.autoloader.enabled
Enable the renv auto-loader? When FALSE, renv will not automatically load a project containing an renv autoloader within its .Rprofile. In addition, renv will not write out the project auto-loader in calls to renv::init().
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.auto.snapshot
Automatically snapshot changes to the project library when the project dependencies change?
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.bitbucket.host
The default Bitbucket host to be used during package retrieval.
Defaults to "api.bitbucket.org/2.0".
renv.config.copy.method
The method to use when attempting to copy directories. See Copy Methods for more information.
Defaults to "auto".
renv.config.connect.timeout
The amount of time to spend (in seconds) when attempting to download a file. Only applicable when the curl downloader is used.
Defaults to 20L.
renv.config.connect.retry
The number of times to attempt re-downloading a file, when transient download errors occur. Only applicable when the curl downloader is used.
Defaults to 3L.
renv.config.cache.enabled
Enable the global renv package cache? When active, renv will install packages into a global cache, and link or copy packages from the cache into your R library as appropriate. This can greatly save on disk space and install time when R packages are shared across multiple projects in the same environment.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.cache.symlinks
Symlink packages from the global renv package cache into your project library? When TRUE, renv will use symlinks (or, on Windows, junction points) to reference packages installed in the cache. Set this to FALSE if you'd prefer to copy packages from the cache into your project library. Enabled by default, except on Windows where this feature is only enabled if the project library and global package cache are on the same volume.
Defaults to NULL.
renv.config.dependency.errors
Many renv APIs require the enumeration of your project's R package dependencies. This option controls how errors that occur during this enumeration are handled. By default, errors are reported but are non-fatal. Set this to "fatal" to force errors to be fatal, and "ignored" to ignore errors altogether. See dependencies() for more details.
Defaults to "reported".
renv.config.dependencies.limit
By default, renv reports if it discovers more than this many files when looking for dependencies, as that may indicate you are running dependencies() in the wrong place. Set to Inf to disable this warning.
Defaults to 1000L.
renv.config.exported.functions
When library(renv) is called, should its exports be placed on the search path? Set this to FALSE to avoid issues that can arise with, for example, renv::load() masking base::load(). In general, we recommend referencing renv functions from its namespace explicitly; e.g. prefer renv::snapshot() over snapshot().
By default, all exported renv functions are attached and placed on the search path, for backwards compatibility with existing scripts using renv.
Defaults to "*".
renv.config.external.libraries
A character vector of external libraries, to be used in tandem with your projects. Be careful when using external libraries: it's possible that things can break within a project if the version(s) of packages used in your project library happen to be incompatible with packages in your external libraries; for example, if your project required xyz 1.0 but xyz 1.1 was present and loaded from an external library. Can also be an R function that provides the paths to external libraries. Library paths will be expanded via .expand_R_libs_env_var() as necessary.
Defaults to NULL.
renv.config.filebacked.cache
Enable the renv file-backed cache? When enabled, renv will cache the contents of files that are read (e.g. DESCRIPTION files) in memory, thereby avoiding re-reading the file contents from the filesystem if the file has not changed. renv uses the file mtime to determine if the file has changed; consider disabling this if mtime is unreliable on your system.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.github.host
The default GitHub host to be used during package retrieval.
Defaults to "api.github.com".
renv.config.gitlab.host
The default GitLab host to be used during package retrieval.
Defaults to "gitlab.com".
renv.config.hydrate.libpaths
A character vector of library paths, to be used by hydrate() when attempting to hydrate projects. When empty, the default set of library paths (as documented in ?renv::hydrate) are used instead. See hydrate() for more details.
Defaults to NULL.
renv.config.install.build
Should downloaded package archives be built (via R CMD build) before installation? When TRUE, package vignettes will also be built as part of package installation. Because building packages before installation may require packages within 'Suggests' to be available, this option is not enabled by default.
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.install.remotes
Should renv read a package's Remotes: field when determining how package dependencies should be installed?
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.install.shortcuts
Allow for a set of 'shortcuts' when installing packages with renv? When enabled, if renv discovers that a package to be installed is already available within the user or site libraries, then it will install a local copy of that package.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.install.staged
DEPRECATED: Please use renv.config.install.transactional instead.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.install.transactional
Perform a transactional install of packages during install and restore? When enabled, renv will first install packages into a temporary library, and later copy or move those packages back into the project library only if all packages were successfully downloaded and installed. This can be useful if you'd like to avoid mutating your project library if installation of one or more packages fails.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.install.verbose
Be verbose when installing R packages from sources? When TRUE, renv will stream any output generated during package build + installation to the console.
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.locking.enabled
Use interprocess locks when invoking methods which might mutate the project library? Enable this to allow multiple processes to use the same renv project, while minimizing risks relating to concurrent access to the project library. Disable this if you encounter locking issues. Locks are stored as files within the project at renv/lock; if you need to manually remove a stale lock you can do so via unlink("renv/lock", recursive = TRUE).
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.pak.enabled
Use the pak package to install packages?
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.ppm.enabled
Boolean; enable Posit Package Manager integration in renv projects? When TRUE, renv will attempt to transform repository URLs used by PPM into binary URLs as appropriate for the current Linux platform. Set this to FALSE if you'd like to continue using source-only PPM URLs, or if you find that renv is improperly transforming your repository URLs. You can still set and use PPM repositories with this option disabled; it only controls whether renv tries to transform source repository URLs into binary URLs on your behalf.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.ppm.default
Boolean; should new projects use the Posit Public Package Manager instance by default? When TRUE (the default), projects initialized with renv::init() will use the P3M instance if the repos R option has not already been set by some other means (for example, in a startup .Rprofile).
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.ppm.url
The default PPM URL to be used for new renv projects. Defaults to the CRAN mirror maintained by Posit at https://packagemanager.posit.co/. This option can be changed if you'd like renv to use an alternate package manager instance.
Defaults to "https://packagemanager.posit.co/cran/latest".
renv.config.repos.override
Override the R package repositories used during restore()? Primarily useful for deployment / continuous integration, where you might want to enforce the usage of some set of repositories over what is defined in renv.lock or otherwise set by the R session.
Defaults to NULL.
renv.config.sandbox.enabled
Enable sandboxing for renv projects? When active, renv will attempt to sandbox the system library, preventing non-system packages installed in the system library from becoming available in renv projects. (That is, only packages with priority "base" or "recommended", as reported by installed.packages(), are made available.)
Sandboxing is done by linking or copying system packages into a separate library path, and then instructing R to use that library path as the system library path. In some environments, this action can take a large amount of time – in such a case, you may want to disable the renv sandbox.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.shims.enabled
Should renv shims be installed on package load? When enabled, renv will install its own shims over the functions install.packages(), update.packages() and remove.packages(), delegating these functions to install(), update() and remove() as appropriate.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.snapshot.inference
For packages which were installed from local sources, should renv try to infer the package's remote from its DESCRIPTION file? When TRUE, renv will check and prompt you to update the package's DESCRIPTION file if the remote source can be ascertained. Currently, this is only implemented for packages hosted on GitHub. Note that this check is only performed in interactive R sessions.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.snapshot.validate
Validate R package dependencies when calling snapshot? When TRUE, renv will attempt to diagnose potential issues in the project library before creating renv.lock – for example, if a package installed in the project library depends on a package which is not currently installed.
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.startup.quiet
Be quiet during startup? When set, renv will not display the typical Project <path> loaded. [renv <version>] banner on startup.
Defaults to NULL.
renv.config.synchronized.check
Check that the project library is synchronized with the lockfile on load?
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.updates.check
Check for package updates when the session is initialized? This can be useful if you'd like to ensure that your project lockfile remains up-to-date with packages as they are released on CRAN.
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.updates.parallel
Check for package updates in parallel? This can be useful when a large number of packages installed from non-CRAN remotes are installed, as these packages can then be checked for updates in parallel.
Defaults to 2L.
renv.config.user.environ
Load the user R environ (typically located at ~/.Renviron) when renv is loaded?
Defaults to TRUE.
renv.config.user.library
Include the system library on the library paths for your projects? Note that this risks breaking project encapsulation and is not recommended for projects which you intend to share or collaborate on with other users. See also the caveats for the renv.config.external.libraries option.
Defaults to FALSE.
renv.config.user.profile
Load the user R profile (typically located at ~/.Rprofile) when renv is loaded? This is disabled by default, as running arbitrary code from the the user ~/.Rprofile could risk breaking project encapsulation. If your goal is to set environment variables that are visible within all renv projects, then placing those in ~/.Renviron is often a better choice. Defaults to FALSE.
Copy methods
If you find that renv is unable to copy some directories in your
environment, you may want to try setting the copy.method option. By
default, renv will try to choose a system tool that is likely to succeed in
copying files on your system – robocopy on Windows, and cp on Unix.
renv will also instruct these tools to preserve timestamps and attributes
when copying files. However, you can select a different method as
appropriate.
The following methods are supported:
auto | Use robocopy on Windows, and cp on Unix-alikes. |
R | Use R's built-in file.copy() function. |
cp | Use cp to copy files. |
robocopy | Use robocopy to copy files. (Only available on Windows.) |
rsync | Use rsync to copy files. |
You can also provide a custom copy method if required; e.g.
Note that renv will always first attempt to copy a directory first to a temporary path within the target folder, and then rename that temporary path to the final target destination. This helps avoid issues where a failed attempt to copy a directory could leave a half-copied directory behind in the final location.
Project-local settings
For settings that should persist alongside a particular project, the various settings available in settings can be used.
Examples
# disable automatic snapshots
options(renv.config.auto.snapshot = FALSE)
# disable with environment variable
Sys.setenv(RENV_CONFIG_AUTO_SNAPSHOT = FALSE)