lockfile_create: Create a lock file

In pak: Another Approach to Package Installation

Create a lock file

Description

The lock file can be used later, possibly in a new R session, to carry out the installation of the dependencies, with lockfile_install().

Usage

lockfile_create(
  pkg = "deps::.",
  lockfile = "pkg.lock",
  lib = NULL,
  upgrade = FALSE,
  dependencies = NA
)

Arguments

pkg	Package names or package references. E.g. ggplot2: package from CRAN, Bioconductor or a CRAN-like repository in general, tidyverse/ggplot2: package from GitHub, tidyverse/ggplot2@v3.4.0: package from GitHub tag or branch, ⁠https://examples.com/.../ggplot2_3.3.6.tar.gz⁠: package from URL, .: package in the current working directory. See "Package sources" for more details.
lockfile	Path to the lock file.
lib	Character vector of library paths, or NULL. Used when resolving package dependencies: packages already installed in any of these paths are considered satisfied. If NULL (the default), an empty temporary library is used, so all dependencies are resolved from scratch regardless of what is currently installed.
upgrade	When FALSE, the default, pak does the minimum amount of work to give you the latest version(s) of pkg. It will only upgrade dependent packages if pkg, or one of their dependencies explicitly require a higher version than what you currently have. It will also prefer a binary package over to source package, even if the binary package is older. When upgrade = TRUE, pak will ensure that you have the latest version(s) of pkg and all their dependencies.
dependencies	What kinds of dependencies to install. Most commonly one of the following values: NA: only required (hard) dependencies, TRUE: required dependencies plus optional and development dependencies, FALSE: do not install any dependencies. (You might end up with a non-working package, and/or the installation might fail.) See Package dependency types for other possible values and more information about package dependencies.

Details

Note, since the URLs of CRAN and most CRAN-like repositories change over time, in practice you cannot use the lock file much later. For example, binary packages of older package version might be deleted from the repository, breaking the URLs in the lock file.

Currently the intended use case of lock files in on CI systems, to facilitate caching. The (hash of the) lock file provides a good key for caching systems.

See Also

Other lock files: lockfile_install()

pak documentation built on April 27, 2026, 5:07 p.m.