Available solutions for R (1/2)

• {renv} or {groundhog}: simple to use, but:
  • Doesn’t save the R version
  • Installing old packages may fail (system dependencies)
• Docker goes further:
  • Manages R and system dependencies
  • Uses immutable and shareable img
  • Containers executable anywhere

Available solutions for R (2/2)

• Docker limitations:
  • Learning curve (Linux knowledge recommended)
  • Not originally designed for reproducibility
  • See: Rocker

The Nix package manager (1/2)

Package manager: tool for installing and managing packages

Package: any software (not just R packages)

A popular package manager:

The Nix package manager (2/2)

• To ensure reproducibility: R, R packages, and other dependencies must be explicitly managed
• Nix is a package manager truly focused on reproducible builds
• Nix manages everything using a single text file (called a Nix expression)!
• These expressions always produce exactly the same result

rix: reproducible development environments with Nix (1/5)

• {rix} (website) simplifies writing Nix expressions!

• Just use the provided rix() function:

library(rix)

rix(date = "2025-06-02",
    r_pkgs = c("dplyr", "ggplot2"),
    system_pkgs = NULL,
    git_pkgs = NULL,
    tex_pkgs = NULL,
    ide = "code",
    project_path = ".")

rix: reproducible development environments with Nix (2/5)

• renv.lock files can also serve as a starting point:

library(rix)

renv2nix(
  renv_lock_path = "path/to/original/renv_project/renv.lock",
  project_path = "path/to/rix_project",
  override_r_ver = "4.4.1" # <- optional
)

rix: reproducible development environments with Nix (3/5)

• List the R version and required packages
• Optionally:
  • system packages, GitHub packages, or LaTeX packages
  • an IDE (RStudio, Radian, VS Code, or “other”)
  • a version of Python and Python packages to include
  • a version of Julia and Julia packages to include

rix: reproducible development environments with Nix (4/5)

• rix::rix() generates a default.nix file
• Build the expressions with nix-build (in terminal) or rix::nix_build() from R
• Access the development environment with nix-shell
• Expressions can be generated even without Nix installed (with some limitations)

rix: reproducible development environments with Nix (5/5)

• Can install specific versions of packages (write "dplyr@1.0.0")
• Can install packages hosted on GitHub
• Many vignettes to get started! See here

Super quickstart

• Uninstall R and RStudio
• Install Nix (on win/linux or on macOS)
• Start a temporary Nix shell to bootstrap your environments:

nix-shell -p R rPackages.rix

Demo

• Basics: scripts/nix_expressions/01_rix_intro/
• renv2nix: scripts/nix_expressions/02_renv2nix/
• Native Code/Positron on Windows: scripts/nix_expressions/03_native_vscode_example/
• Nix and {targets}: scripts/nix_expressions/04_nix_targets_pipeline/
• Nix and Docker: scripts/nix_expressions/05_docker/
• Nix and {shiny}: scripts/nix_expressions/06_shiny/
• GitHub Actions: see here

Introduction (1/3)

• Nix is actually more than just a mere package manager
• Nix is complete end-to-end build tool that leverages functional programming principles to ensure reproducible builds
• Users write Nix expressions which are then translated into Nix derivations
• Derivation: a specification for running an executable on precisely defined input files to repeatably produce output files at uniquely determined file system paths. (source)

Introduction (2/3)

• Essentially: a derivation is a recipe with precisely defined inputs, steps, and a fixed output.
• Given identical inputs and build steps → always produce exact same output
• All inputs to a derivation must be explicitly declared.
• Inputs include not just data files, but also software dependencies, configuration flags, and environment variables, essentially anything necessary for the build process.
• The build process takes place in a hermetic sandbox to ensure the exact same output is always produced.

Introduction (3/3)

• {rix}: output is a shell that contains required software
• {rixpress}: output is whatever is the output of your pipeline (cleaned dataset, Quarto/Rmd document, model predictions, model parameters/weights, model itself…)

rixpress

• {rixpress} allows chaining processing steps in R and Python
• Uses {rix} to create a reproducible (via Nix) execution environment for the pipeline
• Each pipeline step is a Nix derivation
• Data transfer: automatic via reticulate or universal format (CSV, JSON, Parquet…)

An example of a polyglot pipeline

list(
  rxp_py_file(…),    # Read a CSV with Python
  rxp_py(…),         # Filter with Polars
  rxp_py2r(…),       # Python → R transfer
  rxp_r(…),          # Transformation in R
  rxp_r2py(…),       # R → Python transfer
  rxp_py(…),         # Another Python step
  rxp_py2r(…),       # Back to R
  rxp_r(…)           # Final step
) |> rixpress()

• Each step is named and typed (py, r, r2py, etc.)
• Ability to add files (functions.R, img…)

Defining a derivation (input data)

rxp_r_file(
  name = mtcars,
  path = 'data/mtcars.csv',
  read_function = \(x) (read.csv(file = x, sep = "|"))
)

Defining a derivation (some computation)

rxp_r(
  name = filtered_mtcars,
  expr = filter(mtcars, am == 1)
)

Typical structure of a rixpress project

.
├── data
│   └── dataset.csv    # input data (can be many files)
├── functions.py       # user-defined Python functions
├── functions.R        # user-defined R function
├── gen-env.R          # rix script to generate execution env
├── gen-pipeline.R     # rixpress script to generate pipeline
├── my_paper           # folder containing Quarto doc
│   ├── section.qmd    # Qmd file
│   ├── img         # Folder containing img for document
│   │   └── graph.png  # Image to add to paper
│   └── main.qmd       # Main Qmd file
└── Readme.md          # Readme

Defining Quarto or Rmd documents

Use rxp_read() to include pipeline outputs:

rixpress::rxp_read("mtcars_head")

All created objects can be dynamically loaded into the document

Possible to include additional files (content.qmd, img…)

Using rixpress (1/3)

• Start from an empty folder;
• Drop into a temporary shell:

nix-shell --expr "$(curl -sl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ropensci/rix/main/inst/extdata/default.nix)"

Using rixpress (2/3)

• Start project structure using rixpress::rxp_init();
• Edit gen-env.R and gen-pipeline.R;
• Write code in gen-pipeline.R and build pipeline using rxp_make();
• Inspect outputs using rxp_inspect();
• View outputs using rxp_read() (load them using rxp_load();
• View DAG of pipeline using rxp_ggdag() or rxp_visnetwork()

Using rixpress (3/3)

• Build artifacts get saved and re-used across runs;
• Possible to export and import them using import_nix_archive() and export_nix_archive() (very useful on CI!);
• To set up GitHub Actions use rxp_ga();
• Logs of runs get saved, and possible to reload older versions of build artifacts (see vignette).

Transfer with JSON (or other universal format)

• Advantage: avoids using reticulate
• Add a Python serialization function:

def serialize_to_json(pl_df, path):
    with open(path, 'w') as f:
        f.write(pl_df.write_json())

rxp_r(
  name = "x",
  expr = my_fun(data),
  unserialize_function = "jsonlite::fromJSON"
)

Interactive demo

See scripts/rixpress_demo

To learn more:

• Repository GitHub
• Website
• Repository of demos

Fin

If you have questions:

• bruno@brodrigues.co
• Twitter: @brodriguesco
• Mastodon: @brodriguesco@fosstodon.org
• Blog: www.brodrigues.co
• Book: www.raps-with-r.dev
• rix: https://docs.ropensci.org/rix
• rixpress: https://b-rodrigues.github.io/rixpress/

Thanks!