api_shiny: Serve a Shiny app from a plumber2 api

In plumber2: Easy and Powerful Web Servers

Serve a Shiny app from a plumber2 api

Description

You can serve one or more shiny apps as part of a plumber2 api. The shiny app launches in a background process and the api will work as a reverse proxy to forward requests to path to the process and relay the response to the client. The shiny app is started along with the api and shut down once the api is stopped. This functionality requires the shiny and callr packages to be installed. Be aware that all requests to subpaths of path will be forwarded to the shiny process, and thus not end up in your normal route

Usage

api_shiny(api, path, app, except = NULL, auth_flow = NULL, auth_scope = NULL)

Arguments

api	A plumber2 api to add the shiny app to
path	The path to serve the shiny app from
app	A shiny app object
except	Subpaths to path that should not be forwarded to the shiny app. Be sure it doesn't contains paths that the shiny app needs
auth_flow	A logical expression giving the authentication flow the client must pass to get access to the resource.
auth_scope	The scope requirements of the resource

Value

This functions return the api object allowing for easy chaining with the pipe

Using annotation

A shiny app can be served using an annotated route file by using the ⁠@shiny⁠ tag and proceeding the annotation block with the shiny app object

#* @shiny /my_app/
shiny::shinyAppDir("./shiny")

Examples

blank_shiny <- shiny::shinyApp(
  ui = shiny::fluidPage(),
  server = shiny::shinyServer(function(...) {})
)

api() |>
  api_shiny("my_app/", blank_shiny)

plumber2 documentation built on Jan. 20, 2026, 5:06 p.m.