Deploying Apps with {golem}

Colin Fay

2022-07-13

About the `run_app()` function

When launching the app, you might have noticed that the dev/run_dev.R function calls run_app(), which has the following structure:

run_app <- function(
  ...
) {
  with_golem_options(
    app = shinyApp(
      ui = app_ui, 
      server = app_server
    ), 
    golem_opts = list(...)
  )
}

This function might looks a little bit weird, but there’s a long story behind it, and you can read more about it there.

But long story short, this combination of with_golem_options & golem_opts = list(...) allows you to pass argument to the function to be used inside the application, from UI or from server side, which you can get with get_golem_options().

run_app(this = "that")
# And in the app 
this <- get_golem_options("this")

The idea is to provide more flexibility for deployment on each platform you want to run your app on.

Deploying Apps with `{golem}`

The dev/03_deploy.R file contains function for deploying on various platforms.

RStudio Products

golem::add_rstudioconnect_file()
golem::add_shinyappsio_file()
golem::add_shinyserver_file()

Docker

without using {renv}

# If you want to deploy via a generic Dockerfile
golem::add_dockerfile()

# If you want to deploy to ShinyProxy
golem::add_dockerfile_shinyproxy()

# If you want to deploy to Heroku
golem::add_dockerfile_heroku()

using {renv}

CASE 1 : you didn’t use renv during developpment process

this functions will create a “deploy” folder containing :

deploy/
+-- Dockerfile
+-- Dockerfile_base
+-- yourgolem_0.0.0.9000.tar.gz
+-- README
\-- renv.lock.prod

then follow the README file

# If you want to deploy via a generic Dockerfile
golem::add_dockerfile_with_renv(output_dir = "deploy")

# If you want to deploy to ShinyProxy
golem::add_dockerfile_with_renv_shinyproxy(output_dir = "deploy")

If you would like to use {renv} during developpement, you can init a renv.lock file with

attachment::create_renv_for_dev(dev_pkg = c("renv", "devtools", "roxygen2", 
  "usethis", "pkgload", "testthat", "remotes", "covr", "attachment", 
  "pak", "dockerfiler","golem"))

an activate {renv} with

renv::activate()

CASE 2 : you already have a renv.lock file for your project


# If you want to deploy via a generic Dockerfile
golem::add_dockerfile_with_renv(output_dir = "deploy",lockfile =  "renv.lock")

# If you want to deploy to ShinyProxy
golem::add_dockerfile_with_renv_shinyproxy(output_dir = "deploy",lockfile =  "renv.lock")

this functions will create a “deploy” folder containing :

deploy/
+-- Dockerfile
+-- Dockerfile_base
+-- yourgolem_0.0.0.9000.tar.gz
+-- README
\-- renv.lock.prod

then follow the README file