NEWS.md

In Rapp: Easily Build Command Line Applications

Rapp 0.4.0

Breaking changes

• Rapp now checks parsed command line values against declared option types instead of coercing them. Integer options require integer values, so values like 10.2 or true produce an error; float options still accept integer values (#18).
• Rapp now parses YAML with YAML 1.2 semantics. Bare yes and no non-Boolean option values are strings, not Boolean aliases. Boolean options still accept YAML 1.1 aliases such as yes, no, y, n, on, and off for backward compatibility.
• Command switches are now required by default. If a command is omitted, Rapp prints scoped help. Add #| required: false above the switch() to allow running without a command (#21).
• Boolean switch help now shows the command-line form that changes the default: foo <- FALSE shows --foo, foo <- TRUE shows --no-foo, and foo <- NA shows --foo / --no-foo. Passing values remains more permissive: switches accept explicit values such as --foo=false and --foo false. See the Boolean option behavior table for the full set of accepted forms (#28).

New features

• #| examples: annotations now add usage examples to --help output (#23).
• Boolean switches now do the expected thing for most users without additional configuration. For exceptional needs, #| negative_alias: false disables generated --no-* command-line aliases while keeping the positive alias and explicit value forms such as --foo=false (#24, #28).

Bug fixes

• Launcher front matter now accepts documented kebab-case option names, such as default-packages (#19).
• On Windows, tests now preserve the user PATH (#26).
• Rapp can now be installed from source on R versions before 4.0.0 (#30).
• The installation docs now clarify that package apps are discovered as exec/*.R, installed without the .R extension by default, and installed to RAPP_BIN_DIR when set (#20).
• install_pkg_cli_apps() now adds the default ~/.local/bin install directory to the user's zsh profile on macOS when it is not already on PATH. It respects ZDOTDIR and warns if the profile cannot be updated (#35).
• On Windows, install_pkg_cli_apps() no longer replaces the current process PATH with only the user-level Path after adding launcher directories. It now avoids duplicate entries, uses a short path when available, and reports too-long user-level Path values with a remediation hint (#38).

Rapp 0.3.0

Breaking changes

• Positional arguments are now required by default. Use #| required: false to make an argument optional (#13).

New features

• #| short now adds a short option alias like -n (#4, #5).
• c() and list() assignments now declare repeatable options.
• install_pkg_cli_apps() installs launchers for Rapp and Rscript apps in a package's exec/ directory on the user's PATH (#3, #7).
• switch() blocks can now declare commands in Rapp applications (#8, #11).

Rapp 0.2.0

• The default --help output is updated.
• Rapp gains a package logo.
• Rapp is now part of the r-lib organization on GitHub.
• Rapp now includes NEWS.md to track changes to the package.

Rapp 0.1.0

• Initial release.

Rapp documentation built on June 11, 2026, 5:07 p.m.