The R Installation Manager

Install, remove, configure R versions. Manage R packages and projects.

Features

Multiple R versions, side by side

• Install as many R versions as you like, and switch the default for the terminal, RStudio and Positron.
• Select versions by symbolic name: release, devel, next, oldrel, or by exact version.
• Run several versions at the same time via quick links: R-4.5 or R-4.5.1 starts the matching R. Quick links are added to your path automatically.
• List the versions you have installed, and the versions available to install.
• On arm64 macs and Windows, choose between x86_64 and arm64 builds of R, or install both.

Cross-platform and self-contained

• Works on macOS, Windows and Linux. Has native builds for many Linux distributions, and portable builds that run on any glibc- or musl-based Linux.
• A single standalone tool with no system requirements. Easy to install and update on every platform.
• Two installation modes: the default admin mode installs R system-wide (elevating to root/administrator only when needed), while the newer user mode installs everything into your home directory with no sudo or administrator rights.
• On Linux, installs distro-specific builds where available, and otherwise falls back to portable glibc/musl builds automatically.

Package management, set up for you

• Configures the default CRAN mirror and P3M binary repositories.
• Installs pak and enables automatic system requirements installation.
• Creates and configures per-user package libraries.
• rig repos manages package repositories across all your R versions. Add your own CRAN-like repositories, e.g. an internal CRAN mirror or an r-universe, and turn repositories on and off for each R version. rig remembers the setup.
• rig pkg (experimental) installs, removes and lists packages in a library, and looks up package info, dependencies and dependency trees from the repositories, all without running R. It also searches CRAN, and finds problems in a library, e.g. missing or too old dependencies.
• Installs packages from CRAN, Bioconductor (the release that belongs to your R version), your own repositories and local paths, with version constraints, e.g. rig pkg install 'cli@=3.6.4'.
• On Linux, rig pkg, rig proj and rig run install the system requirements of R packages, or print the commands to install them if rig cannot run them as root.

Project dependency management (experimental)

• rig proj manages an R project through an rproj.toml manifest: add or remove dependencies, resolve them with rig’s built-in solver into an rproj.lock lockfile, and sync a project library to match, all without running R.
• Lock for several R versions and platforms at once, pin repositories and Bioconductor releases, ignore package versions newer than a date with --exclude-newer, and upgrade only some packages while keeping the rest pinned.
• Import a project from, or export it to, a DESCRIPTION file or an renv renv.lock file, to interoperate with existing R package and project tooling.
• Inspect a project’s dependencies and dependency tree before installing.

Run R, scripts and apps

• rig run starts R, runs a script or expression, or launches an app: Shiny apps, Plumber APIs, Quarto and R Markdown documents, and static sites, with the R version you choose.
• Self-contained scripts: declare the R version and the packages a script needs in a # /// script comment block, and rig run installs them into the script’s own environment. Lock the versions next to the script with rig proj lock --script.
• On Windows, rig system script-assoc lets you run .R files directly from cmd and PowerShell.

Platform niceties

• A macOS menu bar app shows the default R version and lets you switch it interactively.
• Installs and configures the right Rtools versions on Windows, and cleans up stale R entries from the Windows registry.
• Shell auto-completion for zsh and bash on macOS and Linux, and for PowerShell on Windows.
• On macOS, sets up R for debugging with lldb and enables core dumps.
• JSON output for scripting, e.g. from rig list, rig add and rig rtools add, and a rig config command to manage rig’s own configuration.

📖 Documentation

Full documentation is on the rig website: https://r-lib.github.io/rig/

Quick start:

rig add release      # install the latest R release
rig list             # list installed R versions
rig default 4.5.1    # set the default R version

🤝 Feedback

Please open an issue in our issue tracker at https://github.com/r-lib/rig/issues

Sponsors

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📘 License

MIT 2021-2026 © Posit Software, PBC.