12.4 Automated testing

The book mention some “health check” repository software integration:

  1. Travis CI Note that Travis CI can run tests on GNU/Linux or MacOS operating systems
  2. Appveyor It supports Windows, as well
  3. GitHub actions It is the most common used

With Travis

usethis::use_travis()

  • the events described in the travis configuration file (.travis.yml) are executed (with a binary outcome: 0/1)

  • before merging any pull request, the project manager has access to a series of tests that are automatically launched.

While with GitHub Action the command are the following, the first three perform a standard R CMD check, while use_github_action_pr_commands() sets checks to be performed when a pull request is made to the repository

usethis::use_github_action_check_release() 

use_github_action_check_standard() 
use_github_action_check_full()  

use_github_action_pr_commands()

One more feature is:

  • GitLab CI service is a Docker-based container