Assess if adding an R-Universe mirror allows a Dockerfile + DESCRIPTION install to function without Remotes

[jdhoffa]

          NB (more of a question really, and not something we should solve in this PR): but I wonder if it would be possible/ interesting/ useful to just add or specify our R-universe instance as a package repository? so install from CRAN or RMI R-Universe. that way we don't need to jump through weird Remotes loops, the Dockerfile just knows that anything in our R-universe is valid to install. (obviously we would still need to sort out how to specify what version to install, but I think that is doable)

Originally posted by @jdhoffa in RMI-PACTA/workflow.transition.monitor#231 (comment)

Note: this issue isn't suggesting we actually do this, just assessing if it's feasible/ works well.

[cjyetman]

My initial guess was from the context of adding non-CRAN pkgs in DESCRIPTION Depends: without Remotes: in an R package, which I assume is not feasible because we can't control what CRAN repositories a user will have installed when they try to use it. But also this use case, I'm not 100% sure if it will work.

[jdhoffa]

Ah yeah totally fair point. It would sort of be abusing the purpose of a DESCRIPTION file in that case... I hadn't thought of it that way

[AlexAxthelm]

Looking at the R-universe docs+forums, I'm only seeing specifying options(repos=<foo>) as the way to point the install process at R-universe, but Remotes: seems to work pretty generally now that pak seems to have taken over the R-Lib ecosystem's install process.

[jdhoffa]

Ok!

In that case happy to close this, if we all agree that DESCRIPTION + pak + Remotes is suitable as an installation process for our R packages (for now anyway)

[cjyetman]

https://remotes.r-lib.org/articles/dependencies.html

and an open feature request for allowing Remotes: to specify an r-universe
r-lib/remotes#618

[jdhoffa]

you posted the same link! But if they are working on it, maybe good to leave this issue open

[cjyetman]

updated link. does not sound imminent