install: Install a local development package

In devtools: Tools to Make Developing R Packages Easier

Install a local development package

Description

Uses ⁠R CMD INSTALL⁠ to install the package, after installing needed dependencies with pak::local_install_deps().

To install to a non-default library, use withr::with_libpaths().

Usage

install(
  pkg = ".",
  reload = TRUE,
  quick = FALSE,
  build = !quick,
  args = getOption("devtools.install.args"),
  quiet = FALSE,
  dependencies = NA,
  upgrade = FALSE,
  build_vignettes = FALSE,
  keep_source = getOption("keep.source.pkgs") || !build,
  force = deprecated()
)

Arguments

pkg	The package to use, can be a file path to the package or a package object. See as.package() for more information.
reload	if TRUE (the default), will automatically attempt to reload the package after installing. Reloading is not always completely possible so see pkgload::unregister() for caveats.
quick	if TRUE, skips some optional steps (e.g. help pre-rendering and multi-arch builds) to make installation as fast as possible.
build	If TRUE (the default), first pkgbuild::build()s the package. This ensures that the installation is completely clean, and prevents any binary artefacts (like ‘.o’, .so) from appearing in your local package directory, but is considerably slower, because every compile has to start from scratch. One downside of installing from a built tarball is that the package is installed from a temporary location. This means that any source references will point to dangling locations and debuggers won't have direct access to the source for step-debugging. For development purposes, build = FALSE is often the better choice. If FALSE, the package is installed directly from its source directory. This is faster and can be favorable for preserving source references for debugging (see keep_source).
args	An optional character vector of additional command line arguments to be passed to ⁠R CMD INSTALL⁠. This defaults to the value of the option "devtools.install.args".
quiet	If TRUE, suppress output.
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.
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 it the binary package is older. When upgrade = TRUE, pak will ensure that you have the latest version(s) of pkg and all their dependencies.
build_vignettes	if TRUE, will build vignettes. Normally it is build that's responsible for creating vignettes; this argument makes sure vignettes are built even if a build never happens (i.e. because build = FALSE).
keep_source	If TRUE will keep the srcrefs from an installed package. This is useful for debugging (especially inside of RStudio or Positron). Defaults to getOption("keep.source.pkgs") || !build, since srcrefs are most useful when the package is installed from its source directory, i.e. when build = FALSE.
force	No longer used.

See Also

with_debug() to install packages with debugging flags set.

Other package installation: uninstall()

devtools documentation built on March 14, 2026, 5:06 p.m.