NEWS

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projr 0.0.8.9002

Breaking Changes

CRAN Compliance: Removed Automatic Package Installation

• Removed automatic package installation from all package code to comply with CRAN policy that prohibits writing to user filespace during checks.

• Pre-build package validation: Builds now check for all required packages (build engines, remote destinations) BEFORE starting the build process. If packages are missing, you get a clear error with a copy-paste installation command for all missing packages at once.

• Improved error messages: When running interactively and a package is needed but not installed, projr provides clear, actionable error messages with exact installation commands. No automatic installation occurs to ensure CRAN compliance.

• .dep_install_only() and .renv_lockfile_read() no longer automatically install missing packages. Instead, they throw clear, informative errors with installation instructions when required packages are missing.

• Users must now manually install required optional dependencies before using features that depend on them. The error messages provide exact installation commands.

• This change affects functions that previously auto-installed packages like:

  • Build engines (quarto, rmarkdown, bookdown)
  • Remote destinations (piggyback for GitHub, osfr for OSF)
  • GitHub operations (requires gh package)
  • Git operations in test mode (requires gert package)
  • License creation (requires usethis package)
  • Documentation generation (requires roxygen2 package)
  • And other optional features

• For renv projects: Use renv::install() to install dependencies

• For non-renv projects: Use install.packages() or remotes::install_github() as shown in error messages

Bug Fixes and Improvements

Piggyback (GitHub Releases) Operations

• Improved debug output: All piggyback operations (download, upload, delete, list) now provide detailed debug messages when PROJR_OUTPUT_LEVEL="debug" is set

  • Shows repository and tag information
  • Reports file names and sizes
  • Displays success/failure status
  • Shows error messages from piggyback operations (previously hidden by suppressWarnings/suppressMessages)
  • Reports retry attempts with reasons
  • Logs cache clearing operations
  • Lists available vs. requested files

• Better error handling for manifest.csv and VERSION file operations:

  • Added tryCatch blocks to handle download failures gracefully
  • Added informative debug messages for download attempts, successes, and failures
  • Fixed silent failures - now properly reports when files are not found or downloads fail
  • Improved error messages to help diagnose issues

• Enhanced reliability:

  • All retry logic now includes debug output explaining why retries are happening
  • Piggyback operations provide better feedback about what's happening under the hood
  • Error messages from the piggyback package are no longer silently suppressed

Usage

To enable detailed debug output for piggyback operations:

# Set environment variable before running builds
Sys.setenv(PROJR_OUTPUT_LEVEL = "debug")
projr_build_patch()

# Or pass directly to build functions
projr_build_patch(output_level = "debug")

This will show detailed information about all GitHub release operations, making it much easier to diagnose issues with manifest.csv, VERSION file downloads, or release asset uploads.

• Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.