R

This page covers the requirements and internals of deploying R content to ricochet.

Project requirements

Every R deployment requires a renv.lock file in the project root. This lockfile is generated by {renv} and records all package dependencies and their versions.

Example `_ricochet.toml`

[content]
name = "My Shiny App"
entrypoint = "app.R"
access_type = "external"
content_type = "shiny"

[language]
name = "r"
packages = "renv.lock"

[serve]
min_instances = 0
max_instances = 5

Supported content types

R content items can be deployed as apps or tasks.

Apps

`Content Type`	Description
`plumber`	An API developed using `{plumber}`.
`ambiorix`	An API or web app developed using `{ambiorix}`.
`shiny`	A web app developed using `{shiny}`.
`rmd-shiny`	An R Markdown document using a Shiny runtime.
`quarto-r-shiny`	A Quarto document using a Shiny runtime.
`serverless-r`	R functions deployed as an API.
`r-service`	A generic web app or API using an R runtime.

Tasks

`Content Type`	Description
`r`	An R script with the extension `.R` or `.r`.
`rmd`	An R Markdown document. Can be served as a static site.
`quarto-r`	A Quarto document using an R runtime. Can be served as a static site.

How ricochet runs R content

R version discovery

Ricochet discovers R installations on the host machine. We recommend installing R versions via rig for the best experience managing multiple versions:

rig add <version>

You can also install R from CRAN or your distribution’s package manager.

Environment restoration

Ricochet vendors renv at $RICOCHET_HOME/vendor. When a bundle is deployed, ricochet restores R package dependencies from the renv.lock file using the vendored renv.

Using the API

You can deploy and manage R content programmatically using the ricochet REST API. The examples below use {httr2}. API keys are created in the ricochet UI under Credentials → API Keys.

Deploy a bundle

Bundle your project as a .tar.gz archive and upload it with the _ricochet.toml config.

library(httr2)

server <- "https://try.ricochet.rs"
api_key <- Sys.getenv("RICOCHET_API_KEY")

# Create a tar.gz bundle of the project directory
bundle_path <- tempfile(fileext = ".tar.gz")
tar(bundle_path, files = ".", compression = "gzip")

# Deploy new content
resp <- request(server) |>
  req_url_path_append("api", "v0", "content", "upload") |>
  req_headers(Authorization = paste("Key", api_key)) |>
  req_body_multipart(
    bundle = curl::form_file(bundle_path, type = "application/gzip"),
    config = curl::form_file("_ricochet.toml", type = "application/toml")
  ) |>
  req_perform()

result <- resp_body_json(resp)
result$id
#> "01JSZAXZ3TSTAYXP56ARDVFJCJ"

To redeploy existing content, pass id instead of config:

resp <- request(server) |>
  req_url_path_append("api", "v0", "content", "upload") |>
  req_headers(Authorization = paste("Key", api_key)) |>
  req_body_multipart(
    bundle = curl::form_file(bundle_path, type = "application/gzip"),
    id = "01JSZAXZ3TSTAYXP56ARDVFJCJ"
  ) |>
  req_perform()

Invoke a task

content_id <- "01JSZAXZ3TSTAYXP56ARDVFJCJ"

resp <- request(server) |>
  req_url_path_append("api", "v0", "content", content_id, "invoke") |>
  req_headers(Authorization = paste("Key", api_key)) |>
  req_body_json(list(params = list(n = 100))) |>
  req_perform()

resp_body_json(resp)

List your content

resp <- request(server) |>
  req_url_path_append("api", "v0", "user", "items") |>
  req_headers(Authorization = paste("Key", api_key)) |>
  req_perform()

items <- resp_body_json(resp)