Order of operations for changing GitHub URL of package on R-Universe

[noamross]

If a package is on GitHub and CRAN, and on R-Universe through an organization with an R-Universe repo and packages.json, what's the best order of operations for moving the package to another GitHub organization?

I think it's this:

1. Move the GitHub repository to another organization on GitHub. This will create redirects from the old URL to the new.
2. Remove the package from the original organization's packages.json. This will remove it from the original org's universe.
   • At this point, will R-Universe just follow the DESCRIPTION on CRAN, and work fine with the GitHub redirect to the new location?
     2a) If not, make sure the new organization has its own universe and add the package to packages.json.
3. Change the URL in the package DESCRIPTION to the new GitHub organization.
4. Update the package on CRAN with the new URL in DESCRIPTION

[maelle]

@jeroen could you please comment? Then I think it's worth adding to the docs, probably in https://docs.r-universe.dev/publish/troubleshoot-build.html

[noamross]

The test case, {fasterize}, was moved from ecohealthalliance to hypertidy this week. We completed (1), (2),(2a), and (3). Currently, it appears in the hypertidy universe and not in the ecohealthalliance one. It does not appear in search yet, and the hypertidy page includes the warning:

This package is hidden from search results because it is not hosted in the universe of the upstream owner hypertidy. See also theR-universe documentation.

I suppose we need (4) to resolve this?

[jeroen]

I think it might resolve itself when the fasterize packages is rebuilt, either for the next commit or otherwise once per month.

[jeroen]

Yes those steps sound about right. Indeed updating the package on CRAN will speed up the process. Otherwise it could take up to a month for the https://cran.r-universe.dev/fasterize to get rebuilt and detect the redirected git origin.

You can also speed up the process by putting the universe URL in the package description, I think that will instantly fix things.

[noamross]

Thanks! 👆 @mdsumner