hal_setup: Set up hal for your environment

In hal: Agentic Coding Assistants

Set up hal for your environment

Description

Interactive helper that picks the right backend for the host and walks through prerequisites. Two paths:

Usage

hal_setup(force = FALSE, quiet = FALSE, backend = NULL)

Arguments

force	Logical; re-run setup even if the backend is already ready.
quiet	Logical; suppress progress messages.
backend	Optional backend override ("vscode", "copilot", "claude"). When NULL, picks vscode in Positron and copilot elsewhere.

Details

• Positron (recommended): installs the hal-bridge extension from the VSIX bundled with hal, so hal talks to vscode.lm directly. No Node.js, no Copilot CLI, no GitHub CLI, no download – the only requirement is that you are signed in to GitHub Copilot inside Positron itself (the account menu in the lower left).

• Other hosts (RStudio, VS Code, command-line R): installs the GitHub Copilot CLI (⁠gh copilot⁠ extension preferred, npm ⁠@github/copilot⁠ fallback).

• Claude Code: verifies the claude CLI and points at the download and one-time sign-in. hal does not install this one for you: Claude Code's sign-in is an interactive browser flow, and installing it via npm yields a shim whose output is unreliable when driven from R.

Detection is via POSITRON_VERSION. Pass backend = "copilot" to force the Copilot CLI path inside Positron, or backend = "claude" to check the Claude Code CLI instead.

Value

Invisibly TRUE if the backend transport is available after setup, FALSE otherwise.

See Also

hal_available(), hal_install_bridge(), hal_bridge_status(), hal_models()

Examples

## Not run: 
hal_setup()                          # auto: vscode in Positron, copilot elsewhere
hal_setup(backend = "copilot")       # force the Copilot CLI path
hal_setup(backend = "claude")        # check the Claude Code CLI

## End(Not run)

hal documentation built on Oct. 6, 2026, 5:07 p.m.