Install system dependencies for an R package — install_pkg_sys

This function uses a shared cache approach with safe concurrency controls:

Preserves shared pak cache to avoid redundant downloads/builds
Uses operation-specific mutexes to prevent cache corruption
Implements retry logic with exponential backoff for transient failures
Cleans up stale lock files automatically

Usage

install_pkg_sys_deps(
  package_name,
  tag,
  local_clone_dir,
  platform = platform,
  aggressive_cleanup = FALSE,
  patches = NULL,
  arch = NULL
)

Arguments

package_name: (character)
Package name
tag: (character)
Tag/version. Tags starting with "R-" are filtered out.
local_clone_dir: (character)
Path to clone git repos into
platform: (character)
Platform identifier
aggressive_cleanup: (logical)
Perform additional cache cleanup before installation
patches: Optional path to a patch registry directory containing a registry.json (and any referenced diff files). When set, matching packages are pre-built as patched binaries and served to pak during dependency installation. Defaults to NULL (no patching).
arch: (character)
Architecture

Details

The shared cache approach is preferred over isolation because:

Avoids redundant package downloads across builds
Reduces storage requirements and build times
Maintains cache benefits while ensuring thread safety