Changelog

rig 0.11.0

Custom repositories

• New rig repos add and rig repos rm commands to add and remove your own CRAN-like package repositories, e.g. an internal CRAN mirror or an r-universe. rig stores them in its configuration file, and they work like the built-in repositories, e.g. with --with-repos. rig repos add --enable --all-versions enables a repository for all R versions, including the ones you install later.

• New rig repos enable and rig repos disable commands to turn repositories, built-in or custom, on and off for each R version.

• rig now remembers the repositories enabled and disabled for each R version, with these commands or with --with-repos / --without-repos, and applies them again on rig repos setup. rig repos setup now asks for administrator rights if the current user cannot update the files of the R installations, e.g. in admin mode on Linux and Windows.

• rig pkg install, rig pkg deps, rig pkg tree, rig pkg available and rig pkg info now use the repositories configured for the R version, including custom ones. rig pkg deps, rig pkg tree, rig pkg available and rig pkg info have a new --r-version option. rig pkg search still searches CRAN only.

• rig pkg install, rig pkg deps, rig pkg tree, rig pkg available and rig pkg info have new --with-repos and --without-repos options, with aliases --index and --no-index, to use other repositories for one command, without changing the setup of the R version. --with-repos also takes repository URLs, or name=URL.

• rig pkg commands now only use Bioconductor packages if the Bioconductor repositories are enabled for the R version, e.g. with rig repos enable bioconductor.

• rig now sets up P3M by default on macOS, and on the Linux distributions P3M has no binary packages for, where P3M is a CRAN mirror of source packages. P3M stays off on aarch64 Windows, because it only has x86_64 Windows binaries. Use --without-repos=p3m or rig repos disable p3m to turn it off.

• --without-repos=cran (and rig repos disable cran) now turns off CRAN completely.

• rig proj now implements [[repository]] entries of rproj.toml and repository pinning. rig proj lock, rig proj sync, rig proj deps and rig proj tree have new --with-repos and --without-repos options to add and remove repositories for one command.

Bioconductor

• rig proj and rig pkg now install Bioconductor packages, besides CRAN packages, from the Bioconductor release that belongs to the R version. CRAN and Bioconductor share one package namespace, so a bioc::<package> entry in Remotes: or Config/Needs/* is the same as <package>. A bioc entry in the [[repository]] array of rproj.toml pins the Bioconductor release, or turns Bioconductor off. rproj.lock is now version 5, and records the Bioconductor release of every target.

• rig pkg info now shows the full DESCRIPTION of the current version of a Bioconductor package, e.g. its title, description and maintainer, from the VIEWS file of its Bioconductor repository.

Inline scripts

• rig run now support self-contained scripts, that declare the packages and the R version they need in a # /// script comment block. rig then runs the script in its own environment, in the cache directory, and installs R and the packages as needed. rig run --upgrade and rig run --upgrade-package upgrade the packages of a script’s environment.

• New rig proj lock --upgrade-package (-P) option, to upgrade only some packages, and keep the versions rproj.lock pins for the rest. It also takes a version requirement, e.g. -P 'cli@>= 3.6.4', for this run only (#410).

• rig proj lock now keeps the versions rproj.lock pins when it has to solve the dependencies again, e.g. after rig proj add, as long as they still fit rproj.toml. Use --upgrade to pick the latest versions.

• rig proj init, rig proj add and rig proj remove have a new --script option, to create and edit the # /// script block of an R script, instead of a project’s rproj.toml (#414).

• New rig proj lock --script script.R to lock the dependencies of a script with a # /// script block into script.R.lock, next to the script. rig run then installs the R and package versions of the lock file, and updates it if the block changes. rig run --locked fails instead of updating it (#422).

• New rig system script-assoc command on Windows, to run .R files with rig from cmd and PowerShell, e.g. hello.R a b.

System requirements

• rig pkg install, rig proj sync and rig run now install the system requirements of R packages on Linux, like pak does. rig matches each package’s SystemRequirements field against the r-system-requirements rules, and installs the missing OS packages if it runs as root or if sudo needs no password. Otherwise it prints the commands to run. Source packages and distribution-specific binaries need this, manylinux binaries do not. --no-sysreqs turns this off for one run; the new sysreqs, sysreqs-sudo, sysreqs-update and sysreqs-rules-url config entries configure it; sysreqs = "print" only shows the commands.

• rproj.lock now records the SystemRequirements of each package, so it is version 5. Run rig proj lock to update an older lock file.

Other new features

• rig now honors the OS_type field of packages: a Unix-only package is not used on Windows, and a Windows-only package is not used on macOS and Linux.

• rig add now has a --json option. It prints information about the installed R version (or the already installed version that was kept), including whether it is a new installation and whether it is the default.

• rig rtools add now has a --json option. It prints information about the installed (or already installed) Rtools versions, including whether each one is a new installation.

• New rig pkg search command to search CRAN packages, using the same web service as the pkgsearch R package.

• New rig pkg doctor command to find problems with the packages in a library: missing or too old dependencies, and packages compiled against another version of a LinkingTo dependency (#393).

• rig proj commands now support path dependencies.

• rig proj init and rig proj import do not overwrite the project’s .Renviron file any more. rig now only manages a marked block in it, and keeps the rest of the file, so you can add your own environment variables to it. An existing .Renviron is not a conflict any more, either (#440).

• rig pkg install <path> is now supported. <path> can be a directory, of a source or binary package file.

• rig pkg install now supports constraints. E.g. to install a specific version of a package use rig pkg install '<pkg>@=<ver>'.

• rig proj import --force now correctly overwrites the existing project files.

• If the root project is a package, rig proj lock now includes it in the solution, with a file:// URL.It also calls rig proj export to (re)create its DESCRIPTION file and rig proj sync now installs the root project if it is a package.

• rig pkg install --no-install-project installs only the dependencies of the named packages, like rig proj sync --no-install-project.

• rig proj lock now rewrites the lock file if the list of R versions to solve for changes.

• New --exclude-newer option for rig proj lock, rig proj sync and rig pkg install, to ignore CRAN package versions published after a date, e.g. --exclude-newer 2025-06-01, or in the last few days, e.g. --exclude-newer "7 days". Projects can set it in rproj.toml, with exclude-newer in [tool.rig].

• Projects and scripts can now set prefer-binary in [tool.rig]. rig proj init and rig proj import have a new --prefer-binary option, to write the setting into the manifest.

• Projects can now set the platforms and R versions rig proj lock solves for in rproj.toml, with platforms and r-versions in [tool.rig], e.g. r-versions = ["4.5", "4.6"]. --platform and --r-version override them.

• rig proj lock now also solves for source packages by default rig proj sync uses this target only if no other target matches the machine.

• rig run <script> now passes every argument after the script on to the script, including the ones starting with -, and --. A script that starts with #!, e.g. #!/usr/bin/env -S rig run, does not need an .R extension any more (#413).

• rig run --rscript does not pass an extra --args argument to scripts and -e expressions any more, so commandArgs(TRUE) only has the arguments you gave.

Windows specific changes

• The rig binaries themselves are now signed on Windows, not only the rig installer.

rig 0.10.0

Web site

• rig has a new documentation website at https://rig.r-lib.org/, including a full CLI reference and a guide to admin vs. user mode.

User mode

• rig now supports a user mode on all platforms, in addition to the default admin mode. In user mode rig installs everything into the user’s home directory and never needs sudo or administrator privileges. R goes into ~/.local/share/rig/r (%APPDATA%\rig\data\r on Windows) and quick links into ~/.local/bin (%USERPROFILE%\.local\bin on Windows). Select the mode with the --user / --admin global flags, the RIG_MODE environment variable, or the mode key in the rig config file. The new rig system user-mode command switches an existing admin-mode setup to user mode.

• On Linux, rig can now install portable R builds, for glibc- and musl-based Linux distros. If there is no distro-specific build for your platform, rig falls back to a portable build automatically.

R package management

• New rig pkg subcommand to query and manage R packages. Two subcommands from rig repos moved to rig pkg: rig pkg available and rig pkg info. rig pkg deps lists the packages a package needs, in a table, and rig pkg tree shows the same dependencies as a tree. rig pkg list lists the packages installed in a library, rig pkg remove deletes packages from a library, and rig pkg install installs packages, and their dependencies, into a library.

Projects

• New and redesigned rig proj commands to manage isolated R projects and virtual environments: rig proj init, rig proj import, rig proj add, rig proj remove, rig proj lock, rig proj sync, rig proj status.

• New rig proj tree shows the dependency closure of a project as a tree.

• When no version of a package matches a version requirement, e.g. dplyr = "0.13.0", which means >= 0.13.0, < 0.14.0, the error message now says so, and lists the nearest versions that do exist. An unknown package is now reported as not available, and the error is not printed twice any more (#423).

• rig run now uses the project environment, if you call it in a project directory: it starts .rvenv/bin/R, with the project’s package library and the R version the project’s lock file names, and it syncs the project first if the environment is missing or out of date. Use --no-project (or --r-version) to run the default R version instead.

• rig run <name> now runs a script the project declares in a [[bin]] table of its rproj.toml, passing the remaining arguments on to the script. rig run --list lists the declared scripts.

• rig proj sync can now centralize project package libraries outside the project directory: set the RIG_PROJ_LIBRARY_ROOT environment variable or the proj-library-root config key to a root directory, and each project gets its own library under it, keyed by project name and location. A compatibility symlink is left at the project’s usual .rvenv/lib. rig system dirs --library-root reports the effective root (#372).

Windows specific

• Windows builds of rig are now signed, thanks to the SignPath Foundation, https://signpath.org/.

• On Windows rig now creates .exe shims instead of bat shims. With .exe shims it is easier to pass command line arguments to R and Rscript. In particular, Rscript -e <code> now works if <code> has line breaks. Call rig system make-links to create all .exe shims and remove the .bat shims. If you hardcoded shims with a .bat extension, change them to .exe or remove the extension completely (#362).

• New rig system fix-r-alias subcommand.

• rig rtools is now a top-level command (it used to be rig system rtools).

• On Windows, R CMD config now works without manually putting Rtools on the PATH. So do R CMD sh, R CMD make and rig run --cmd config.

macOS specific

• rig sysreqs has been removed. It did not reliably set up a working Fortran toolchain (#262). Install gfortran from https://mac.r-project.org/tools instead.

Other new features

• rig add no longer reinstalls a version that is already installed, except for R-devel and R-next. Use --reinstall for force a re-install (#293).

• rig add can now install the R version an renv.lock file requires, e.g. rig add renv.lock or rig add path/to/renv.lock (#294).

• New rig system blas commands, to check and switch which BLAS/LAPACK library an installed R version uses on macOS, e.g. to switch to Apple’s faster Accelerate/vecLib BLAS (#212).

• New rig self update to update rig, new rig self uninstall to remove rig, if it was installed via the install script.

• New rig cache command to inspect and manage rig’s download and build caches. rig now reflinks or hardlinks packages from the cache when possible, instead of copying them, to save disk space and time.

• New rig ppm command queries Posit Package Manager. New rig ppm build-log shows the build log of a package on Posit Package Manager.

• New rig repos status checks the configured package repositories.

• New rig system fix-aliases to update R-release, R-oldrel etc. aliases (#234).

• rig library add, rig library default, rig library list and rig library rm have a new --r-version (-r) option, to operate on the libraries of an R version other than the default one.

• New rig system dirs command to show the directories rig uses. With --r, --binary, --data, --cache, --download, --log, --rtools (Windows only) or --fonts (Linux only) it prints a single path, for use in scripts.

• New rig config command to manage the rig configuration file.

• rig run --cmd <command> [args...] now runs R CMD <command> [args...] with the selected R version.

• rig run -- <flags> now passes raw arguments straight to the R process, e.g. rig run -- --vanilla or rig run -e '1+1' -- --vanilla (#249).

• Plain rig run (i.e. without -e/-f/an app/--cmd) now defaults to --no-save --no-restore, so it no longer shows the “Save workspace image?” prompt on exit. Use rig run -- --save --restore to get the old behavior back (#249).

Other changes

• rig add --without-p3m works correctly again (#369).

• macOS user mode: rig default now sets the default R version correctly for newer RStudio versions. Also, rig system allow-debugger-rstudio now works for newer RStudio versions.

• rig now uses a user-dependent download directory, to avoid interference between users.

• rig now does not edit the shell startup files in admin mode, like rig 0.8.1 did on macOS. rig now only does this in user mode.

• rig repos available now prints a compact table. New rig repos available <name> shows complete information about a single repository.

• rig system setup-user-lib (and its create-lib alias) now works again.

• rig rstudio --config-path is now implemented on Linux and macOS.

• rig now warns instead of failing when it encounters a broken R installation (#346).

rig 0.8.1

• The RIG_PLATFORM environment variable works correctly again (#325).

• rig can now install R > 4.6.0 (current R-devel) correctly on macOS.

rig 0.8.0

• New rig repos subcommand to manage R package repository setup across all installed R versions.

• The --without-p3m option of rig add is now always available, for consistency across platforms. By default P3M is on on x86_64 Windows and supported Linux distros, as before. The new --with-p3m option turns on P3M on macOS as well.

• rig now supports aarch64 Windows. It currently only supports installing aarch64 builds of R and Rtools on aarch64 Windows. The x86_64 build of rig also works on aarch64 Windows and installs aarch64 builds of R and Rtools. Installing and managing x86_64 builds of R on aarch64 Windows is not supported yet.

• rig now supports RHEL 10 and binary compatible distributions like AlmaLinux OS 10 and Rocky Linux 10.

• R installations by rig now do not set the default CRAN repositories in RStudio and Positron (#203).

• rig now supports the new macOS arm64 Sonoma builds, which are are the default CRAN builds starting from R 4.6.0 (current R-devel).

rig 0.7.1

• macOS packages now include completion files for elvish and fish shells (#221, @TymekDev).

• rig available --list-distros output now includes PPM support, whether the a distro is retired, the EOL and in the JSON format also the last R version for that distro.

• rig add is now better at detecting PPM support for new Linux distribution versions. In particular, new Linux distribution releases do not need a rig update to learn about PPM support. Relatedly, rig system detect-platform now does not report PPM support. Use rig available --list-distros to see which Linux distributions have PPM binaries.

• rig run now exits with the exit code of the R process (#261).

• Custom certificates via the SSL_CERT_FILE environment variable work again (#227).

• rig library default does not crash now (#240).

• rig now uses a better way to get the user’s home directory, that works on systems without an /etc/passwd database (#228).

• Windows: rig supports Rtools45 now.

rig 0.7.0

• Bash completions work well again (#202).

• rig rstudio has a new implementation that works much better. Now it always defaults to the R version in renv.lock for renv projects, and can open RStudio projects or directories.

• New rig available --list-rtools-versions option to list available Rtools versions.

• rig run now does not terminate the rig process on interrupts (CTRL+C, CTRL+BREAK on Windows, SIGINT on Unix) (#187).

• Windows: new rig system rtools subcommand to add, remove, list Rtools versions (#18).

• Windows: rig now supports Rtools44 on Windows.

• Windows: rig now defaults to Rtools42 for R 4.2.x on Windows.

• macOS: rig rstudio <version> works again on recent macOS versions (#208).

• macOS: rig now always creates the /usr/local/bin/R-* quick links with 0755 permissions (#200).

• Linux: rig add --without-p3m works again (#193).

• Linux: RIG_PLATFORM works again when sudo is needed (#191).

rig 0.6.0

• rig now supports RPM based distros, in addition to Debian and Ubuntu (#28). The full list of supported distros, on x86_64 and aarch64:

  • Debian 10, 11, 12,
  • Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04, 22.04,
  • Fedora Linux 37, 38,
  • OpenSUSE 15.3, 15.4,
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP3, SP4,
  • CentOS 7,
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, 9,
  • AlmaLinux 8, 9,
  • Rocky Linux 8, 9. See also the new rig available --list-distros.

• New rig available command to list R versions available to install. rig available --list-distros lists the supported Linux distributions.

• New rig run to run R, an R script or an R project, using the selected R version (#161).

• rig now works in a shell that is a subprocess or R, e.g. in the RStudio terminal (#127).

• rig now works behind a proxy, on macOS and Linux, if the https_proxy environment variable is set (#166).

• rig resolve now has a --platform and a --arch arguments, to look up available R versions for any supported platform, instead of the current one.

• rig ls --plain lists only the R version names, this is useful in shell scripts (#128).

• rig rstudio now starts RStudio with the correct working directory and project (#139, #100).

• macOS: rig add now only changes the permission for the R version that it is installing (#109).

• Windows: rig rstudio now starts the correct R version, even with newer RStudio versions (#134).

• Windows: rig now works in PowerShell 7.

• Windows: the rig installer now does not create shortcut in the start menu (#160).

• Linux and macOS: rig now keeps the locales when switching to the root user, so e.g. the language does not change (#138).

• Linux: rig now works properly in Oh My Zsh (#125).

• Linux: rig now works around a missing /usr/bin/sed that happened on some distros (#119).

• Linux: rig now does not fail if the default R version was deleted (#124).

• Linux: new subcommand rig system detect-platform to print the detected Linux distribution and configuration.

• Linux: You can now set the RIG_PLATFORM environment variable to override the auto-detected Linux distriution. E.g. RIG_PLATFORM=ubuntu-22.04 will force Ubuntu 22.04.

• Linux: rig now comes with a CA certificate bundle, so it works without system certificates. If you prefer not to use it, set the SSL_CERT_FILE environment variable to point to your preferred CA bundle (#176).

rig 0.5.3

• rig can now install x86_64 R 4.3.0 and later on macOS.

• rig now does a better job when resolving R versions.

• rig now supports Rtools43 on Windows.

• rig now does not try to reinstall Rtools if the same version is already installed.

rig 0.5.2

• rig now always runs non-interactively on Linux from a root shell (#117).

• rig now always uses --vanilla when running R (#120).

• rig now detects Deepin Linux as Debian (#111).

rig 0.5.1

• rig now prints output from apt, etc. like regular logging output on Linux.

• rig now supports the alises oldrel, release, next, devel in rig default, rig rm, rig rstudio, etc. (#108).

rig 0.5.0

• rig can now open renv projects in RStudio, with the correct R version. Pass the renv lock file to rig: rig rstudio .../renv.lock (#74).

• rig list now prints the result as a table, and it prints the R version number as well. rig list --json includes the version number, the path to the installation, and the path to the R binary.

• rig is now more robust when setting up the user library. In particular R will not fail to start in renv projects (#81, @krlmlr).

• On macOS and Linux rig add now creates the user library with the right permissions, if it does not exist and pak is installed (#84).

• rig add now correctly installs pak into the user library, instead of the system library, even if the user library did not exist before.

Windows

• On Windows, rig add ... --without-translations installs R without message translations. This is useful if you prefer using R in English on a non-English system (#88).

• On Windows rig add does not add a Desktop icon now by default. If want an icon, use the new --with-desktop-icon switch (#89).

• On Windows, if the default version is deleted, rig updates the registry accordingly, and removes the default from there as well (#86).

• New subcommand rig system update-rtools40 updates MSYS2 packages of Rtools40 on Windows (#14).

macOS

• On macOS rig add now does not fail if it is started from an x86_64 shell, when adding an arm64 R version on M1 Macs (#79).

• On macOS, rig rstudio <ver> now errors if R <ver> is not orthogonal, and the menu bar app errors as well (#90).

rig 0.4.1

• rig rstudio <version> and rig rstudio <version> <project> work properly again (#77).

• On Windows, rig rstudio now properly restores the default version after starting RStudio, if a non-default version was specified.

rig 0.4.0

NEW NAME

rim is now known as rig.

New features

• Experimental multi-library support. See rig library --help for the details.

• On macOS rig now includes a menu bar app that show the default R version, lets you choose between R versions and libraries, and lets you start RStudio with a specific R version, and/or a recent RStudio project. Start the app with open -a Rig.

• New subcommand rig system setup-user-lib to update the R config to create the user package library when R starts up, if it does not exist. The old rig system create-lib subcommand is now an alias of this.

• Better messages. rig has a -v and -vv flag now, for extra debug and trace messages.

• On arm64 macOS, rig add installs arm64 R by default now. (This is also true for the x86_64 build of rig.

• On macOS rig add does not change the default R version any more (#2).

• rig now supports Linux distros based on Ubuntu Bionic 18.04, Focal 20.04 and Jammy 22.04. They need to have a proper UBUNTU_CODENAME entry in /etc/os-release (#34).

• rig now sets up automated system requirements installation with pak on Linux distributions that support it: Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04 and 22.04 (on distros based on these), on both x86_64 and aarch64. (This currently needs passwordless sudo or a root account.)

• All OSes create an Rscript link now that runs the default R version (#20).

rim 0.3.0

• New rim rstudio command to open a project in RStudio with the specified R version.

• rim add now performs additonal tasks, to give you an R installation that is ready to use:

  • It installs pak for the newly added R version, it is wasn’t installed before. You can opt out of this with the --without-pak option. You can select the pak version to install with --pak-version.

  • Sets the default R version after installation to the newly installed version, if no default is set.

  • Sets the default CRAN mirror to the cloud mirror in the system profile, after installation (#11).

  • Sets up RStudio Package Manager (RSPM) as the default repository, if your system is supported. See https://packagemanager.rstudio.com for more about RSPM. The systems that are supported by both RSPM and rim are Windows, and Ubuntu Linux 18.04, 20.04 and 22.04, all of them on x86_64 architectures only (#15).

• rim add now only caches downloaded files for a day.

• rim system add-pak now has a new option --pak-version to specify the pak version to install (stable, rc or devel). Its --devel option is now deprecated.

• rim list now marks the default R version (if any) with (default) (#38).

Windows

• rim has a Chocolatey package now, so on Windows you can install it with choco install rim and upgrade it with choco upgrade rim.

• On Windows rim default <version> now sets the default R version in the Windows Registry as well, which changes the default for RStudio. (Make sure you set the R version in RStudio to the machine’s default version in Tools -> Global Options -> Basic -> General -> R version.)

macOS

• On macOS rim system fix-permissions now sets the permissions and group of the Current link. Also, rim add now calls rim system fix-permissions for all installed R versions, because the R installed changes the permissions of all of them.

rim 0.2.3

• rim system allow-debugger and rim system allow-core-dumps now work on macOS Big Sur.

rim 0.2.2

• rim now supports the next version of R:

  rim resolve next
  rim add next

  The next version of R is R-alpha, R-beta, R-rc or R-prerelease if there is an active R release process, and it is R-patched otherwise.

rim 0.2.1

Linux

• rim now supports arm64 Linux, currently the following distributions: Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04 & 22.04 and Debian 9, 10 & 11.

• rim now supports Debian 11, on arm64 and x86_64.

macOS

• New macOS rim system commands to allow debugging: rim system allow-debugger, and to allow core dumps: rim system allow-core-dumps.

• rim now uses better R-devel URLs on macOS, that do not fail if the daily build failed on mac.r-project.org.

Windows

• rim now supports Rtools42 on Windows: rim add rtools42.

• Fix resolution of older Windows installers, they were moved to another URL.

• rim can now delete Rtools on Windows, e.g.: rim rm rtools42.

rim 0.2.0

• New Linux version.

• On macOS rim now asks for your password for tasks that require admin access.

• On Windows rim now automatically elevates to administrator privileges as needed, by re-running with gsudo. gsudo is now bundled in the Windows distribution.

• New rim system clean-registry command to remove leftover Windows registry entries

• New rim system no-openmp to use the Apple compilers on macOS.

• rim rm now cleans the registry on Windows.

• The Windows rim installer adds rim and R to the PATH on GitHub Actions.

• rim list does not error any more if no R versions are installed.

• macOS now has rim system no-openmp to fix the conpiler configurations for the Apple compilers.

rim 0.1.5

• Experimental Windows version.

rim 0.1.4

• resolve and add work again.

rim 0.1.3

• bash and zsh completions out of the box, on macOS

• You can now pass URLs .pkg installers to rim add on macOS.

rim 0.1.2

• rim ls is now a synonym of rim list.

• We have macOS installers now, and they are signed and notarized.

rim 0.1.1

• `rim rm now supports removing multiple versions.

• rim system commands create-lib, fix-permissions and make-orthogonal can be now restricted to one or more R versions. rim add now only calls them for the newly installed R version.

• rim system add-pak is now implemented.

rim 0.1.0

First pre-release.