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shinycoreci

Github Runner Images

shinycoreci uses the following GitHub Runnner Images.

Image Details Status
Ubuntu 20.04 ubuntu-20.04 status20
macOS 12 macos-12 statusumac12
Windows Server 2022 windows-2022 statuswin22

Installation

Install the development version from GitHub with:

pak::pak("rstudio/shinycoreci")

These GitHub packages will be installed to make sure the latest package development is working as expected:

R-Universe

shinycoreci testing leverages rOpenSci r-universe, specifically the posit-dev-shinycoreci universe. This universe is used to install the latest development versions of the Shiny related packages (updated hourly) used in the testing apps without the need for a GitHub token. This last detail is important, as it allows GitHub Actions to install packages freely without the worry of being rate limited. This gives us the ability to attempt to install each app’s dependencies independently, leading to higher test coverage as a single dependencies does not block the entire test execution.

Running manual tests

First, install the shinycoreci repo via {pak} (from instructions above). Before running any tests, you may need to add your GITHUB_PAT to your R Environ file (See ?usethis::edit_r_environ and ?usethis::create_github_token)

Commands used to test in different situations:

All testing functions may be run from within the IDE (except for R Terminal / R GUI).

IDE Example 

# install.packages("pak", repos = sprintf("https://r-lib.github.io/p/pak/stable/%s/%s/%s", .Platform$pkgType, R.Version()$os, R.Version()$arch))

# Install the latest from pak
pak::pkg_install("rstudio/shinycoreci")

# Install shinyverse
# Run all manual tests
shinycoreci::test_in_ide()

View the latest test results

To view the latest test results, please visit https://rstudio.github.io/shinycoreci/results/. This link will update to the latest results when they are pushed.

If you see failures, this indicates that a test has failed. If it is related to a shinytest2 snapshot failure, we can view and approve these failures with shinycoreci::fix_snaps(). Your working directory must be in a local checkout of the rstudio/shinycoreci repo. Once shinycoreci::fix_snaps() has finished running, use GitHub Desktop to view the changes.

If you receive the error No information found for sha: ABC1234 . Do you have a valid sha?, you may have to provide the git sha value directly: shinycoreci::fix_snaps(sha = "XYZ5678").

In the event that all testing failures can not be addressed by updating shinytest2 baselines, have a look at the GHA actions build log and keep the following troubleshooting tips in mind:

Troubleshooting test failures

  1. Failures on old versions of R

If a testing app passes on recent version(s) of R, but fails in a suprising way on old R version(s), it may be due to an old R package version. In that case, modify the tests to run only if a sufficient version of the relevant package is available (for example).

  1. Other failures that can’t replicated locally

Other surprising failures are often the result of timing issues (which can be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate locally). If your testing app uses dynamic UI and/or doesn’t have proper input/output bindings, shinytest2 probably needs to know how long to wait for value(s) to update (in this case, use app$wait_for_idle(), for example). Somewhat similarly, when checking DOM values with shinyjster, you may need to wait for an update to DOM element(s) before checking value(s), in which case you can write a recursive function that keeps calling itself until the DOM is ready (for example).

  1. All of the windows shinytest plots have failed

When Windows virtual images update on GitHub Actions, the graphics device may behave exactly as the prior graphics device. Check to see if your windows Image Version has updated. (To view this, inspect the top lines in ./inst/apps/sys-info-win-XX.txt for a change.) You should accept the updated shinytest output for the build with the higher Image Version.

Contribute a testing app

When contributing a testing app, try to do the following:

  • Capture all the functionality with automated tests.
    • Also, where possible, write “light-weight” tests (that is, try and avoid shinytest2 $expect_screenshot() where possible since they are prone to false positive differences and thus have a maintenance cost).
    • If the app does need manual testing, flag the testing app for manual testing with shinycoreci::use_manual_app().
  • Add a description to the app’s UI that makes it clear what the app is testing for.

Note that shinycoreci only supports testthat testing framework. Call shinytest2::use_shinytest2(APP_DIR) to use shinytest2 and testthat

  1. shinytest2: primarily useful for taking screenshots of shiny output binding(s) (before or after interacting with shiny input bindings). See here for an example (note that shinytest2::record_test() can be used to generate shinytest2 testing scripts).

  2. shinyjster: primarily useful for asserting certain expectations about the DOM (in JavaScript). See here for an example (note that shinyjster::shinyjster_js() needs to be placed in the UI and shinyjster::shinyjster_server(input, output) needs to be placed in the server).

  3. testthat: primarily useful in combination with shiny::testServer() to test server-side reactive logic of the application.

Pruning old git branches

To help us store and manage the test results, git branches are automatically created for each test run. These branches are automatically removed on GitHub after 1 week of no activity, but you may want to periodically remove them on your local machine as well:

git fetch --prune

What workflows are available?

This repo contains several GitHub Actions workflows:

  • Test apps: Run all automated tests (via shiny::runTests()). If on main branch, test results will be saved to _test_results branch.
  • Docker: Create all SSO and SSP docker images. Docker images are hosted on rstudio/shinycoreci via GitHub Packages.
  • Deploy: Deploy all testing apps to shinyapps.io and rsc.radixu.com
  • Build results website: Builds results for Test apps workflow. This workflow is called from within Test apps. After all tests have completed, this workflow will process all results in _test_results branch into static files, storing the results in gh-pages branch. Final website location of results: https://rstudio.github.io/shinycoreci/results/
  • Package checks: There are three main tasks that this workflow achieves:
    1. Creates the website via pkgdown
    2. Performs routine procedures like making sure all documentation and README.md is up to date
    3. Performs R CMD check on shinycoreci, across macOS, Windows, and Ubuntu (multiple R versions).
  • Update app deps: Updates known dependencies of all Shiny applications in ./inst/apps.
  • Trim old branches: The current data model of Test apps workflow is to create many gha-** branches containing the changes of each test run on main. gha-** branches that have been stale for more than a week are removed.

Trigger

There are a handful of methods that can be called to trigger the GHA actions.

A triggered workflow will run without having to push to the repo. Anyone with repo write access can call this command.

Schedule

Most of the workflows are run on schedule.

Example schedule where the workflow is run at 2am UTC Monday through Friday:

  schedule:
    - cron:  '0 2 * * 1-5'

Schedule of rstudio/shinycoreci workflows:

  • 12am UTC, S-S: Trim old branches; < 1 min
  • 12am UTC, M-F: Update app deps; < 5 mins
  • 2am UTC, M-F: Deploy apps; ~ 2 hrs
  • 3am UTC, M-F: Docker; ~ 1 hr
  • 5am UTC, M-F: Test apps (Internally calls Build results website); ~ 4 hrs

build-results.yml

Breakdown of what happens in the Build results website workflow:

On completion of apps-test-matrix.yml…

  • GHA will check out the latest _test_results branch into the local folder.
  • GHA will check out the latest gh-pages branch into the ./_gh-pages folder.
  • GHA will install R and necessary package dependencies.
  • Run ./build_site.R
    • Read the modify times of each file in _test_results and processing files
    • Compare modify times to modify times of output files
    • If any input file is newer than the output file, reprocess the documen
    • If reprocessing, render ./render-results.Rmd given proper subset of data
      • Save output to `./_gh-pages/results/YEAR/MONTH/DAY/index.html
    • Update ./_gh-pages/results/index.html to redirect to the most recent results
  • Within the ./_gh-pages directory
    • Add any files that have been altered
    • Commit and push back any changes to the gh-pages website

Final results are available at: https://rstudio.github.io/shinycoreci/results/

FAQ:

  • If you run into an odd pak installation issue:
  • Installing on fresh linux? Run these commands before testing:
pkgs <- c('base64enc', 'bslib', 'Cairo', 'clipr', 'curl', 'dbplyr', 'DiagrammeR',
  'dplyr', 'DT', 'evaluate', 'flexdashboard', 'future', 'ggplot2',
  'ggvis', 'hexbin', 'htmltools', 'htmlwidgets',
  'httpuv', 'jsonlite', 'knitr', 'later', 'leaflet', 'magrittr',
  'maps', 'markdown', 'memoise', 'networkD3', 'plotly', 'png',
  'progress', 'promises', 'pryr', 'radiant', 'ragg', 'RColorBrewer',
  'reactable', 'reactlog', 'reactR', 'rlang', 'rmarkdown', 'rprojroot',
  'rsconnect', 'RSQLite', 'rversions', 'scales', 'sf', 'shiny',
  'shinyAce', 'shinydashboard', 'shinyjs', 'shinymeta',
  'shinytest2', 'shinythemes', 'shinyvalidate', 'showtext', 'sysfonts',
  'systemfonts', 'testthat', 'thematic', 'tidyr', 'tm', 'websocket',
  'withr', 'wordcloud',
  'sessioninfo',
  'debugme', 'highcharter', 'parsedate', 'quantmod', 'rjson', 'rlist', 'showimage', 'TTR', 'XML', 'xts'
);
pak::pkg_system_requirements(pkgs, execute = TRUE);
install.packages(pkgs);
# Now you should be able to go about testing