Turn Claude into an expert on writing {testthat} #Rstats 📦 version 3 R tests with the Claude Testing R Packages skill by @posit.co github.com/posit-dev/sk... That repo has other skills including how to use brand.yml with Quarto and Shiny github.com/posit-dev/sk... #GenAI

oh! Also in this release: 4 new tools for common #RStats package dev tasks: running tests, checking test coverage, running R CMD check and rebuilding documentation. These tools are a great way to get Claude Code and Codex to run tests 🧪 without burning tokens 🔥 posit-dev.github.io/btw/referenc...

Happy holidays! 🎄 I snuck in a {btw} release just before CRAN went on vacation for the year. {btw} is an #RStats package full of tools for LLMs, including a new tool for running R code. Here's a quick demo using `btw_app()` to create a quick festive ggplot2 from holiday movie titles. Cheers! 🧑‍🎄

I see a lot of complaints about untested AI slop in pull requests. Submitting those is a dereliction of duty as a software engineer: Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/...

For months I've had a pesky message that shows up in my #RStats test logs and today I realized I can figure out exactly where it's coming from with testthat's location reporter Rscript -e 'devtools::test(reporter = "location")' 2>&1 | tee test.log

One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential

For…reasons, I've been investigating non-US alternatives for some of the services I use. TIL that @BunnyCDN offers a drop-in replacement for Google Fonts: fonts.bunny.net/ Also Bunny itself is a great EU-based alternative to most of what Cloudflare offers.

Offcanvas 1.0.0 for Quarto is now available. Simple syntax for Bootstrap offcanvas components using fenced divs. Automatically converts margin content to collapsible panels on mobile, keeping aside notes accessible where they're referenced. github.com/mcanouil/qua... #Quarto #DataScience #Bootstrap

“Search history,” a poem (by me) How to prepare duck breast In the fall of democracy, And protect overwintering bees And immigrants. De-icing your freezer And town square, And saying what you mean To get a knee off your chest. Six ways to make casserole Without health insurance. (Cont)

My R+AI Conf talk is now available on YouTube: youtu.be/828KuEORQdg?... I talked about my R package {brandthis} that helps you getting started with theming your quarto outputs and shiny apps by quickly generating brand.yml files and color palettes for R and Python plots #RStats

testthat 3.3.0 out now! This is a massive release with tons of improvements including better failure messages, new expectations, improved snapshotting, new vignettes, and much much more: tidyverse.org/blog/2025/11... Post includes some thoughts on developing an #rstats package with Claude Code.

Dr. Cat Hicks (@grimalkina.bsky.social) gave one of my very favorite keynotes of all time at #positconf this year 🥹 It really made my heart glow, and now that all the conf talks are on YouTube, you can watch it even if you missed conf!! #databs #rstats #python www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-bM...

I've been dipping my toes in package development for #lua, #python, and #bash and #rstats friends -- let me tell you I didn't realize how good we have it with {devtools} , {usethis}, and the rich supportive rstats community

Tomorrow morning! Come by!

If you use AI to write a PR, then *you’re the first reviewer*. And if you’re asked to review unreviewed AI-generated code, here’s a great template for your first review.

Full schedule is live: R+AI 2025 · Nov 12–13 · online Sample session: “Tools for LLMs and Humans who use R” — Garrick Aden-Buie (Posit) How the {btw} package feeds computational context to LLMs for smoother R+AI workflows. Register! rconsortium.github.io/RplusAI_webs... #rstats #AI @posit.co

Happy logical Halloween

This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted. It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed. The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.

R+AI 2025 • Nov 12–13 • Online • Low-cost Skip the hype. See how R + AI works in production! Keynote: Joe Cheng (Posit) on focused, reliable LLMs for data science Actionable R+AI sessions. Students from $25. Register: rconsortium.github.io/RplusAI_webs... #rstats @posit.co @jcheng5.bsky.social

I'm a big fan of this idea! I need to write a blog post on this, but bslib + brand.yml + pkgdown's light switch is a killer combo for branded pkgdown sites with light/dark themes. The {btw} site is a good example posit-dev.github.io/btw/ All the magic is in _pkgdown.yml github.com/posit-dev/bt...

This raid is disgusting, abominable behavior, traumatizing children and families in their homes. abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

I really appreciate everyone agreeing with me 😆

You arrive at a text input and start typing. Would you rather 1️⃣ Press Enter to submit your text 2️⃣ Press Enter to add a new line

Last week, I went from long-time attendee to first-time speaker at #PositConf2025. I shared how behavioral science can help #rshiny cut user friction and build kinder tools. Even ended with #rstats contributions. I couldn't be more grateful! Recap 👇 jrwinget.com/blog/2025-09-25_posit-conf-journey

I am super hyped to finally share the first release of plumber2 with all of you. This has been the center of my attention for a big part of 2025 and I hope you'll find it a worthy update to the venerable plumber package. The blog post will tell you more #rstats

New github status: "sending beep-boops back to the Snarfus"

Against my better instincts, I have written some notes on how human probability judgements work and what you should expect from surveys that ask people to guess what proportion of the population is transgender. I hope never to speak of this matter again

I feel seen listening to @grrrck.xyz talking about making his own Beamer theme in grad school. RIP Kelly's Personal Beamer theme (2015-2017), killed by discovering RMarkdown. 🪦

Really insightful post from Julie Tibshirani (spotted in LinkedIn, can't find on Bsky) reflecting on #rstats 's unique governance structure and what can be learned for other languages jtibs.substack.com/p/if-all-the...

I program in Squirrel, i.e. a mixture of SQL and R while leaving many small files littered around my drive #Rstats

ggplot2 4.0.0 is out and the new `paper`, `ink`, `accent` theme variables look super cool! Just pick 2-3 colors 🎨 to make your plots look great! I'm excited to hook this up to brand.yml 😉

Actual thing I just said to an LLM: "Dial back the marketing speak. Be a normal human."

On the topic of “our” duty to persuade abusers, a tale: —— THE FINGER-TAKER’S SON Whenever the king became displeased with one of his subjects, he would send out his soldiers, and before long the offender would find themselves in the basement of the king’s finger-taker.

Finally got Glimpse out focused on what the Posit open source team has been up to. Turns out its quite a bit! posit.co/blog/posit-g... I continue to be happy with the approach we (Posit) are taking with LLMs and AI. Too impactful to ignore but focus on useful and safe as much as possible.

Interesting how so many projects are now improving docs & error messages "so LLMs can understand." 🤖 Was making them clear for humans not a good enough reason already?

Thread from my colleague. ICE is grabbing thousands of persons off the street who look or sound Hispanic but for whom there's no reason to suspect lack of lawful immigration status or any other grounds for detention. Courts have ruled that's illegal under the Constitution.

Forget code generation - use ChatGPT as an intelligent tutor to learn skills that persist. I based this experiment on academic research about learning. It was super fun, & I was genuinely surprised by how effective it was. 🔗 Write-up here: niccrane.com/posts/llms_f... #rstats #llms #ai #chatgpt

Every good sock has at least one hole

🐘 ellmer 🐘 makes it easy and fun to use LLMs from #rstats, and 0.3.0 is out now. Read about the new streamlined chat() function, improvements to tool specifications, and more at www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/07....

Elevate your publishing game with #Quarto at #PositConf2025! Create branded, scalable, customized content. Join 1 of 2 hands-on workshops: 🎨 Branded Websites, Presentations, Dashboards, PDFs with Quarto 🛠️ Extending Quarto (with filters & extensions) Workshop details: pos.it/conf-2025-workshops

🎉 Big news! After 5+ years of consulting work under the R for the Rest of Us name, I'm launching Clarity Data Studio. The name confusion was real – people thought we only did courses, not knowing about our consulting work building reports, websites, and more.

Ready to build interactive web apps or integrate AI into your data projects? Don't miss our workshops at posit::conf(2025)! #RStats Shiny @rundel.bsky.social #Python Shiny @chendaniely.bsky.social Programming with LLMs @jcheng5.bsky.social & @grrrck.xyz Explore & register: pos.it/conf/schedule

Spot on. This is the clearest explanation I’ve seen. It ‘s relatable, and humanizes the issue in a way everyone can understand.

I built an app called PocketCal for easily sharing dates! pocketcal.com

CLARIFICATION : The Trevor Project's hotline will still be live. But basically this means LGBTQ people can no longer be connected to it through the US national 988 suicide prevention hotline. They will need to be contacted DIRECTLY So spread this around They can be texted. They can be called.

I had a blast chatting about brand.yml with @rfortherestofus.com!

Want to easily use LLMs from R? ellmer 0.2.0 provides: • Batch & parallel processing • A universal parameter interface • Cost tracking • Support for Mistral, Hugging Face, & Portkey And much more! Read all about it at: www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/05... #rstats

Introducing acquaint, an R package that turns your R sessions into a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This allows MCP-enabled tools like Claude Desktop and Claude Code to run #rstats code _in your active R sessions_ to explore objects, read documentation, etc. posit-dev.github.io/acquaint/

Introducing the btw package for teaching LLM chat apps about your #RStats package! Inject "invisible" messages into chats via system prompts and use tool calls to dynamically fetch context when needed. Check out a dplyr example and learn more in @simonpcouch.com's post! posit.co/blog/custom-...