Managing R environment with `renv`

RaukR 2026 • Data Science With R

Roy Francis

18-Aug-2026

What is renv?
Overview of functions
Usage examples
Tips & Tricks

What is renv?

renv (reproducible environments) is a toolkit to manage project-specific libraries of R packages

Every project gets its own private library
Package versions are recorded in a lockfile (renv.lock)
Anyone can restore the exact same library from the lockfile

Overview

Initialize
renv::init()
Write code, install packages
install.packages()
Record environment
renv::snapshot()
Repeat 2 & 3
Restore environment when needed
renv::restore()

Initialize

renv::init()

Creates in your project:

File / Folder	Purpose
`renv/`	Private package library
`renv.lock`	Exact package versions (JSON)
`.Rprofile`	Auto-activates `renv` on startup
`renv/activate.R`	Bootstrap script

Tip

Commit renv.lock, .Rprofile, and renv/activate.R to Git.
Add renv/library/ to .gitignore.

Anatomy of `renv.lock`

{
  "R": {
    "Version": "4.3.2",
    "Repositories": [{ "Name": "CRAN", "URL": "https://p3m.dev/cran/latest" }]
  },
  "Bioconductor": { "Version": "3.18" },
  "remotes": {
    "Package": "remotes",
    "Version": "2.4.2.1",
    "Source": "Repository",
    "Repository": "RSPM",
    "Requirements": [ "R", "methods", "stats", "tools", "utils" ],
    "Hash": "63d15047eb239f95160112bcadc4fcb9"
  }
}

R version & repositories
Package: name, version, source, repository, requirements, hash

Check status

What has changed in my project compared to the previous record?

> renv::status()
The following package(s) are missing:

 package installed recorded used
 dplyr   n         n        y
 ggplot2 n         n        y
 shiny   n         n        y

See ?renv::status() for advice on resolving these issues.

> renv::snapshot()
The following required packages are not installed:
- dplyr
- ggplot2
- shiny
Packages must first be installed before renv can snapshot them.
Use `renv::dependencies()` to see where this package is used in your project.

What do you want to do?

1: Snapshot, just using the currently installed packages.
2: Install the packages, then snapshot.
3: Cancel, and resolve the situation on your own.

> renv::snapshot()
The following package(s) will be updated in the lockfile:

# RSPM -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- dplyr        [* -> 1.1.4]
- fansi        [* -> 1.0.6]
- generics     [* -> 0.1.3]
- tidyselect   [* -> 1.2.0]
- utf8         [* -> 1.2.4]
- withr        [* -> 3.0.0]

Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]:

Restoring library

> renv::restore()
The following package(s) will be updated:

# CRAN -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- R6            [* -> 2.5.1]
- fontawesome   [* -> 0.5.2]
- xfun          [* -> 0.41]
- yaml          [* -> 2.3.8]

# RSPM -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- dplyr         [* -> 1.1.4]
- fansi         [* -> 1.0.6]
- withr         [* -> 3.0.0]

Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]:

renv::restore()
Rebuild a project library from a lockfile
Handles multiple sources
- CRAN
- Bioconductor
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Bitbucket
- Private repositories…
Will not modify R version

Tracking lockfile

# view lockfile history
renv::history()

# revert to previous state
renv::revert(commit="commit 2")

How renv works

All projects share the same library

Each project has its own library. Projects’ libraries are linked to the global cache.

Each project has its own library. Disable global cache: renv::settings$use.cache(FALSE)

Tips & Tricks

Use renv::dependencies() to discover dependencies in your project
Create and maintain a .renvignore file to exclude files from dependency discovery
Snapshot all packages in the library regardless of whether they are used in the project renv::snapshot(type = "all")
Ignore a package in the snapshot: renv::settings$ignored.packages("pkg")
Use renv::install() to install packages from multiple sources (CRAN, Bioconductor, GitHub, local path) renv::install(c("ggplot2@3.4.0", "bioc::DESeq2", "tidyverse/ggplot2"))
Use pak as backend for faster installs: options(renv.config.pak.enabled = TRUE)
Add pkgs to lockfile without installing: renv::record("pkg")
Remove unused packages from the local library: renv::clean() or from global cache: renv::purge()
Restore only selected packages: renv::restore(packages = c("dplyr", "ggplot2"))
Copy pkgs from global cache to local library: renv::isolate()
Update a package to a newer version: renv::update("pkg")
If renv is behaving weirdly, try renv::diagnostics() to check for common issues
Disabling renv
- Temporarily: renv::deactivate() or to activate again renv::activate()
- Permanently: renv::deactivate(clean=TRUE) removes renv/, .Rprofile and renv.lockfile
- Remove global cache completely: unlink(renv::paths$root(), recursive=TRUE)

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

Recap

Key commands

renv::init()     # Initialize project lib
renv::snapshot() # Record current lib state
renv::restore()  # Restore lib from lockfile
renv::status()   # Check if lib matches lockfile

renv::update()       # Update packages
renv::install("pkg") # Install a package
renv::dependencies() # Discover dependencies
renv::history()      # View lockfile history
renv::revert()       # Revert to previous state
renv::clean()        # Remove unused pkgs from local library
renv::purge()        # Remove unused pkgs from global cache
renv::isolate()      # Copy pkgs locally from global cache
renv::diagnostics()  # Check for common issues
renv::deactivate()   # Temporarily disable renv

Alternatives

Emerging alternatives to renv

uvr
- Inspired by Python’s uv library
- uvr.toml manifest and uvr.lock lockfile
- Manages R version, system dependencies, and R packages
- Rust-based, fast, and cross-platform
- Resolves entire environment before installation

rv
- rproject.yaml manifest and rv.lock lockfile
- Does not manage R version or system dependencies
- Rust-based, fast, and cross-platform
- Resolves entire environment before installation

ir
- Posit Blog
a small command-line tool that runs R scripts and renders Quarto documents using runtime requirements declared in the file itself

Acknowledgements

Project environments for R, Kevin Ushey, RStudio::Conf 2020

Reproducible environments with renv, Ryan Johnson, NHS-R community 2023

renv official documentation

Thank you!

Questions?

2026 • SciLifeLab • NBIS • RaukR

Session

R version 4.5.3 (2026-03-11)
Platform: x86_64-conda-linux-gnu
Running under: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: /home/roy/miniforge3/envs/r-4.5/lib/libopenblasp-r0.3.33.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.0

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C              
 [3] LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8    
 [5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                 
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

time zone: Europe/Stockholm
tzcode source: system (glibc)

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] compiler_4.5.3  fastmap_1.2.0   cli_3.6.6       tools_4.5.3    
 [5] htmltools_0.5.9 otel_0.2.0      yaml_2.3.12     rmarkdown_2.31 
 [9] knitr_1.51      jsonlite_2.0.0  xfun_0.59       digest_0.6.39  
[13] rlang_1.3.0     evaluate_1.0.5

Managing R environment with renv

Contents

What is renv?

Overview

Initialize

Anatomy of renv.lock

Check status

Snapshot

Restoring library

Tracking lockfile

How renv works

Tips & Tricks

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

renv is only one piece of the reproducibility puzzle

Recap

Alternatives

Acknowledgements

Session

Managing R environment with `renv`

Anatomy of `renv.lock`