CRAN-like checks proof-of-concept

[tylfin]

Overview

In the Dec 5th, 2022 working group meeting we discussed the option of making the QA scripts available here more accessible for R package maintainers during the development process.

This issue is up for consideration and involves creating a PoC of tooling to make executing the CRAN QA scripts as easy as possible with high fidelity to what would be expected after a package is submitted.

Approach

We talked about a three-step approach including:

1. Add an entry point script (e.g. bash or makefile), that is thoroughly documented, to use as a tool to kick-off the QA checks
2. Create a Github action or similar CI template for package maintainers to use in their projects
3. Explore opportunities to make compute / infrastructure available to the community

Additional Considerations

Some additional considerations we discussed during the meeting included:

• The QA scripts, environments, and configurations can change dynamically, we need to figure out how to keep whatever tooling up to date
• The parts that tend to "trip" developers up include checks on Windows, MacOS, or cross-compatibility issues, this infrastructure costs more (or takes more time) on Github and could be hard for hobbyists to get access to
• The CRAN team has mentioned they aren't interested in package authors "gaming" the system, e.g. just making sure folks pass the status checks, but instead creating high-quality packages. Can we continue to encourage that while making this part of the workflow easier?