Could I put renv files in a subdirectory rather than the root directory at the same level as .Rproj?

[Chishio318]

Hello, first and foremost, thank you so much for making and managing the renv package! This makes collaboration with far easier and safer.

I am writing to file a request for the package. Currently I am working on a fairly large project with many others that needs the folders to be well-structured. Specifically, I have the following structure:

01_admin
02_raw
03_build
04_analyze
05_report
06_literature
.gitignore
myproject.Rproj
.README.md

When I use the renv package, the package includes the following items in the root directory:
renv (folder)
.Rprofile
renv (lock file)

As I try to keep the root folders customized and organized as much as possible, I wish to put these three files within 01_admin folder. However, if I understand correctly, renv requires these files to be located at the root directory by default. I tried to relocate to the subfolder and update some contens manually, e.g. by modifying .Rprofile path and updating activate.R script, I was at the end unable to put the renv items in a subfolder.

To make the package management even more seemless, I wonder if it is technically possible to allow the sets of renv files to be put in a subfolder.

Thank you!

Best regards,
Chishio

[kevinushey]

Sorry for taking so long to respond!

The development version of renv has a new function, autoload(), which can be used to try and automatically load an renv project located within the parent directory of some sub-directory. The intention here is that you place:

renv::autoload()

into your user .Rprofile, located at ~/.Rprofile, and then when your R session starts up, if renv discovers an renv project root in a parent directory, it will automatically be loaded.

If you want to give this a try, you can install the development version of renv with:

renv::install("rstudio/renv")

And then call renv::snapshot() to add renv to the lockfile.

[Chishio318]

Hello - thank you so much for responding so quickly! My huge respect for the RStudio Team -- responding to all questions must be so overwhelming - with almost no time to rest (>< I'm working at the proposed solution and am a bit struggling, but let me follow up when I make further progress.