r-pkg-check

Runs a full package check — the superset check that unit tests alone don’t cover — and triages every NOTE, WARNING, and ERROR it reports before a release or CRAN submission.

Why this exists: devtools::test() only runs unit tests; it says nothing about documentation completeness, example runnability, DESCRIPTION metadata, or the CRAN-policy checks that R CMD check applies. A package whose tests pass can still fail R CMD check on an undocumented argument, a broken \dontrun{} example, or a non-portable file name — issues that only surface by running the full check.

When to run

Before a release, before a CRAN submission, or whenever asked to check a package end to end — not during ordinary iteration (use test for that).

Procedure

  1. Confirm this is an R package. Check that DESCRIPTION exists at the repo root. If not, skip — this skill doesn’t apply.

  2. Run the same check CI runs:

    Rscript -e 'devtools::check()'

    Check this repo’s own .github/workflows/ for an R CMD check-style job first — if one pins specific flags (e.g. --as-cran, --no-manual), run that exact invocation instead so local results match

    1. Absent such a workflow, devtools::check() is the default; add args = "--as-cran" when preparing a CRAN submission specifically (see r-pkg-cran-checklist).
    • If devtools isn’t installed: Rscript -e 'install.packages("devtools")' then retry. If R isn’t available at all, fall back to step 5.

  3. Triage each NOTE, WARNING, and ERROR:

    • Real problem (missing documentation, broken example, undeclared dependency) → fix it in the source.
    • A NOTE that’s a known, accepted false positive (e.g. a package name CRAN’s spell-checker doesn’t recognize) → document why in a cran-comments.md entry (see r-pkg-cran-checklist) rather than silently ignoring it.
    • Never leave an ERROR or WARNING unaddressed — both block a CRAN submission and usually indicate a real defect.

  4. Re-run step 2 to confirm a clean check (0 errors, 0 warnings, and every remaining NOTE accounted for) before pushing or submitting.

  5. If R isn’t available, manually review the diff for the shapes R CMD check usually flags: new exported functions without @param/ @return docs, examples that call network or interactive code without \dontrun{}/\donttest{}, and new dependencies missing from DESCRIPTION’s Imports/Suggests.

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