R Validation Hub + Multiverse

[dgkf]

Hi Multiversers! Thanks for the discussion today!

I just wanted to reach out with a few immediate questions when reading through the multiverse.

• In the build details, it sounds like the r-universe packages.json file is updated automatically. This part feels familiar to me, but I'm wondering how this affects the build policy. Are all packages built together as well?
• How does this account for dependencies not available in the multiverse (notably from CRAN)? Assuming all packages get re-built at the same time, I assume there's a CRAN snapshot that corresponds to the multiverse release?

[wlandau]

In the build details, it sounds like the r-universe packages.json file is updated automatically. This part feels familiar to me, but I'm wondering how this affects the build policy. Are all packages built together as well?

Yes, R-multiverse takes https://github.com/r-multiverse/contributions/tree/main/packages as input and then automatically generates packages.json. R-universe takes packages.json as input and then runs individual package-specific actions at https://github.com/r-universe/r-multiverse/actions. I believe these package-specific actions are triggered when new versions (in our case, releases) are created. I think r-universe-org/help#369 is going to super important for both production and r-universe-org/help#149.

How does this account for dependencies not available in the multiverse (notably from CRAN)? Assuming all packages get re-built at the same time, I assume there's a CRAN snapshot that corresponds to the multiverse release?

Right now, we are recommending that users set repos = c("https://r-multiverse.r-universe.dev", getOption("repos")) in install.packages(). During package checks, R-universe automatically pulls non-universe dependencies from CRAN.

In the current prototype phase, we are catering to packages not already on CRAN. But we hope to eventually scale up to a point where dependencies are also in-universe.

[wlandau]

@dgkf, we have made progress on R-multiverse since we last spoke. We submitted an R Consortium ISC proposal to develop the initial infrastructure for #10, and the proposal was accepted. @jeroen helped us host a QA universe at https://multiverse.r-multiverse.org (https://github.com/r-multiverse/multiverse) and a production universe at https://production.r-multiverse.org (https://github.com/r-multiverse/production). The R-universe GUI is not available because of our custom DNS, but you can use these repos in install.packages(). And beginning with r-multiverse/multiverse.internals#25, we are working on a prototype to enforce package checks for the production universe.

Perhaps our biggest challenges is governance (#60). I will be sure to keep you in the loop.

[wlandau]

@dgkf, you may be interested in the snapshot-based model we are now pursuing for production: #78

[dgkf]

Thanks @wlandau - just reading through the discussion and it sounds like quite a powerful model for bridging the gap to production.