I've noticed that the .Rproj files for some of my RStudio projects now have a ProjectId field, containing what looks like a 128 bit UUID. I assume this is a new feature of a recent RStudio release.
I noticed it because I have committed the .Rproj files to Git, and it's reporting that the file has changed.
Is there any documentation for how this field is being used?
I'm wondering in particular about how it will work if I have coworkers on the same project. Should they use the same ProjectID, or should they create their own unique one? If they have recently updated RStudio, they've probably already created one. Will it be the same as mine (because of a connection to Git ids) or not?
Once this field is added to the .Rproj file, it will not be changed when the project is opened by other users (e.g. if sharing via github, etc.). That is the intended behaviour.
One exception is if a user with an older version of RStudio (before 2024.12.x) opens the project. In that case, the field will be removed from the .Rproj file when it is saved. If a user with 2024.12.x or newer then opens that project, a new UUID will be generated and assigned. This is "mostly harmless" (other than the noise it generates in source control and potentially some orphaned .Rproj.user data). See ProjectId in .RProj is not 100% compatible with prior RStudio releases · Issue #15524 · rstudio/rstudio · GitHub for a discussion of that quirk.