Skip to content

Deploy an Application

Source: R/deployApp.R
deployApp.Rd

Deploy a shiny application, an RMarkdown document, a plumber API, or HTML content to a server.

Usage

deployApp(
  appDir = getwd(),
  appFiles = NULL,
  appFileManifest = NULL,
  appPrimaryDoc = NULL,
  appSourceDoc = NULL,
  appName = NULL,
  appTitle = NULL,
  envVars = NULL,
  appId = NULL,
  appMode = NULL,
  contentCategory = NULL,
  account = NULL,
  server = NULL,
  upload = TRUE,
  recordDir = NULL,
  launch.browser = getOption("rsconnect.launch.browser", is_interactive()),
  on.failure = NULL,
  logLevel = c("normal", "quiet", "verbose"),
  lint = TRUE,
  metadata = list(),
  forceUpdate = NULL,
  python = NULL,
  forceGeneratePythonEnvironment = FALSE,
  quarto = NA,
  appVisibility = NULL,
  image = NULL,
  envManagement = NULL,
  envManagementR = NULL,
  envManagementPy = NULL,
  space = NULL
)

Arguments

appDir

A directory containing an application (e.g. a Shiny app or plumber API). Defaults to the current directory.

appFiles, appFileManifest

Use appFiles to specify a character vector of files to bundle in the app or appManifestFiles to provide a path to a file containing a list of such files. If neither are supplied, will bundle all files in appDir, apart from standard exclusions and files listed in a .rscignore file. See listDeploymentFiles() for more details.

appPrimaryDoc

If the application contains more than one document, this parameter indicates the primary one, as a path relative to appDir. Can be NULL, in which case the primary document is inferred from the contents being deployed.

appSourceDoc

[Deprecated] Please use recordDir instead.

appName

Application name, a string consisting of letters, numbers, _ and -. The application name is used to identify applications on a server, so must be unique.

If not specified, the first deployment will be automatically it from the appDir for directory and website, and from the appPrimaryDoc for document. On subsequent deploys, it will use the previously stored value.

appTitle

Free-form descriptive title of application. Optional; if supplied, will often be displayed in favor of the name. If ommitted, on second and subsequent deploys, the title will be unchanged.

envVars

A character vector giving the names of environment variables whose values should be synchronised with the server (currently supported by Connect only). The values of the environment variables are sent over an encrypted connection and are not stored in the bundle, making this a safe way to send private data to Connect.

The names (not values) are stored in the deployment record so that future deployments will automatically update their values. Other environment variables on the server will not be affected. This means that removing an environment variable from envVars will leave it unchanged on the server. To remove it, either delete it using the Connect UI, or temporarily unset it (with Sys.unsetenv() or similar) then re-deploy.

Environment variables are set prior to deployment so that your code can use them and the first deployment can still succeed. Note that means that if the deployment fails, the values will still be updated.

appId

Use this to deploy to an exact known application, ignoring all existing deployment records and appName.

You can use this to update an existing application that is missing a deployment record. If you're re-deploying an application that you created it's generally easier to use appName; appId is best reserved for re-deploying apps created by someone else.

You can find the appId in the following places:

  • On shinyapps.io, it's the id listed on the applications page.

  • For Posit Connect, it's guid from the info tab on the content page.

appMode

Optional; the type of content being deployed. Provide this option when the inferred type of content is incorrect. This can happen, for example, when static HTML content includes a downloadable Shiny application app.R. Accepted values include "shiny", "api", "rmd-static", "rmd-shiny", "quarto-static", "quarto-shiny", and "static". The Posit Connect API Reference contains a full set of available values. Not all servers support all types of content.

contentCategory

Optional; classifies the kind of content being deployed (e.g. "plot" or "site").

account, server

Uniquely identify a remote server with either your user account, the server name, or both. If neither are supplied, and there are multiple options, you'll be prompted to pick one.

Use accounts() to see the full list of available options.

upload

If TRUE (the default) then the application is uploaded from the local system prior to deployment. If FALSE then it is re-deployed using the last version that was uploaded. FALSE is only supported on shinyapps.io; TRUE is required on Posit Connect.

recordDir

Directory where deployment record is written. The default, NULL, uses appDir, since this is usually where you want the deployment data to be stored. This argument is typically only needed when deploying a directory of static files since you want to store the record with the code that generated those files, not the files themselves.

launch.browser

If true, the system's default web browser will be launched automatically after the app is started. Defaults to TRUE in interactive sessions only. If a function is passed, it will be called after the app is started, with the app URL as a paramter.

on.failure

Function to be called if the deployment fails. If a deployment log URL is available, it's passed as a parameter.

logLevel

One of "quiet", "normal" or "verbose"; indicates how much logging to the console is to be performed. At "quiet" reports no information; at "verbose", a full diagnostic log is captured.

lint

Lint the project before initiating deployment, to identify potentially problematic code?

metadata

Additional metadata fields to save with the deployment record. These fields will be returned on subsequent calls to deployments().

Multi-value fields are recorded as comma-separated values and returned in that form. Custom value serialization is the responsibility of the caller.

forceUpdate

What should happen if there's no deployment record for the app, but there's an app with the same name on the server? If TRUE, will always update the previously-deployed app. If FALSE, will ask the user what to do, or fail if not in an interactive context.

Defaults to TRUE when called automatically by the IDE, and FALSE otherwise. You can override the default by setting option rsconnect.force.update.apps.

python

Full path to a python binary for use by reticulate. Required if reticulate is a dependency of the app being deployed. If python = NULL, and RETICULATE_PYTHON or RETICULATE_PYTHON_FALLBACK is set in the environment, its value will be used. The specified python binary will be invoked to determine its version and to list the python packages installed in the environment.

forceGeneratePythonEnvironment

Optional. If an existing requirements.txt file is found, it will be overwritten when this argument is TRUE.

quarto

Should the deployed content be built by quarto? (TRUE, FALSE, or NA). The default, NA, will use quarto if there are .qmd files in the bundle, or if there is a _quarto.yml and .Rmd files.

(This option is ignored and quarto will always be used if the metadata contains quarto_version and quarto_engines fields.)

appVisibility

One of NULL, "private", or "public"; the visibility of the deployment. When NULL, no change to visibility is made. Currently has an effect only on deployments to shinyapps.io.

image

Optional. The name of the image to use when building and executing this content. If none is provided, Posit Connect will attempt to choose an image based on the content requirements.

envManagement

Optional. Should Posit Connect install R and Python packages for this content? (TRUE, FALSE, or NULL). The default, NULL, will not write any values to the bundle manifest, and Connect will fall back to the application default environment management strategy, or the server default if no application default is defined.

(This option is a shorthand flag which overwrites the values of both envManagementR and envManagementPy.)

envManagementR

Optional. Should Posit Connect install R packages for this content? (TRUE, FALSE, or NULL). The default, NULL, will not write any values to the bundle manifest, and Connect will fall back to the application default R environment management strategy, or the server default if no application default is defined.

(This option is ignored when envManagement is non-NULL.)

envManagementPy

Optional. Should Posit Connect install Python packages for this content? (TRUE, FALSE, or NULL). The default, NULL, will not write any values to the bundle manifest, and Connect will fall back to the application default Python environment management strategy, or the server default if no application default is defined.

(This option is ignored when envManagement is non-NULL.)

space

Optional. For Posit Cloud, the id of the space where the content should be deployed. If none is provided, content will be deployed to the deploying user's workspace or deployed to the same space in case of redeploy.

Details

Deployment records

When deploying an app, deployApp() will save a deployment record that makes it easy to update the app on server from your local source code. This generally means that you need to only need to supply important arguments (e.g. appName, appTitle, server/account) on the first deploy, and rsconnect will reuse the same settings on subsequent deploys.

The metadata needs to make this work is stored in {appDir}/rsconnect/. You should generally check these files into version control to ensure that future you and other collaborators will publish to the same location.

If you have lost this directory, all is not lost, as deployApp() will attempt to rediscover existing deployments. This is easiest if you are updating an app that you created, as you can just supply the appName (and server/account if you have multiple accounts) and deployApp() will find the existing application account. If you need to update an app that was created by someone else (that you have write permission) for, you'll instead need to supply the appId.

See also

applications(), terminateApp(), and restartApp()

Other Deployment functions: applications(), deployAPI(), deployDoc(), deploySite(), deployTFModel()

Examples

if (FALSE) {

# deploy the application in the current working dir
deployApp()

# deploy an application in another directory
deployApp("~/projects/shiny/app1")

# deploy using an alternative application name and title
deployApp("~/projects/shiny/app1", appName = "myapp",
          appTitle = "My Application")

# deploy specifying an explicit account name, then
# redeploy with no arguments (will automatically use
# the previously specified account)
deployApp(account = "jsmith")
deployApp()

# deploy but don't launch a browser when completed
deployApp(launch.browser = FALSE)

# deploy a Quarto website, using the quarto package to
# find the Quarto binary
deployApp("~/projects/quarto/site1")

# deploy application with environment variables
# (e.g., `SECRET_PASSWORD=XYZ` is set via an ~/.Renviron file)
rsconnect::deployApp(envVars = c("SECRET_PASSWORD"))
}