How to add a devtools package to cron job in GitHub actions

Question

Since the DatawRappr package is only available on Github...

devtools::install_github("munichrocker/DatawRappr")

how can one add this to a cron job? For example, this is what I have now:

   - name: Install packages
    uses: r-lib/actions/setup-r-dependencies@v2
    with:
      packages: |
        any::dplyr 
        any::janitor
        any::tidyr

and have tried things like

devtools::DatawRappr

or

  - name: Install DatawRappr package
    run: Rscript -e 'devtools::install_github("munichrocker/DatawRappr")'

  - name: Install other packages
    uses: r-lib/actions/setup-r-dependencies@v2
    with:
      packages: |
        any::dplyr 
        any::janitor
        any::tidyr

but i'm at a loss!

Answer 1

See this example repo: https://github.com/the-mad-statter/action-run-r-script

With run-r-script.yaml:

on:
  push:
    branches: main

jobs:
  run-r-script:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Set up R
        uses: r-lib/actions/setup-r@v2

      - name: Install packages
        uses: r-lib/actions/setup-r-dependencies@v2
        with:
          packages: |
            any::dplyr 
            any::janitor
            any::tidyr
            
      - name: Install DatawRappr package
        run: |
          Rscript -e "pak::pkg_install('munichrocker/DatawRappr')"

      - name: Check out repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run script
        run: Rscript -e 'source("my_r_script.R")'

      - name: Commit results
        run: |
          git config --local user.email "[email protected]"
          git config --local user.name "GitHub Actions"
          git add output.txt
          git commit -m 'ran my_r_script.R' || echo "No changes to commit"
          git push origin || echo "No changes to commit"

Remember to set the repository Settings -> Actions -> General -> Workflow permissions to "Read and write permissions" if you intend to have the workflow write back to the repo.