Project skeleton

A minimal, reproducible starting point for an R research project: a simple folder layout, a curated .gitignore, pinned packages with renv, data checks with testthat, and a place for external data with pins. Download it, delete what you do not need, and start working.

Getting started

1. Download this repository as a zip file, unzip it and rename the folder to your project name. You start with no git history; run git init when you are ready (or forced) to use git.
2. Open project-skeleton.Rproj in RStudio (rename it to match your project).
3. Put raw data in data/raw/ and edit the numbered scripts in scripts/.
4. Replace the placeholders in CITATION.cff and LICENSE.
5. Run renv::init() at the end of the project, before you share the code (see PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md).
6. Read PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md, then delete it. Rewrite this README.md to describe your own project.

Folder structure

.
├── CITATION.cff
├── LICENSE
├── PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md
├── project-skeleton.Rproj
├── R
│   ├── README.md
│   └── check_data.R
├── README.md
├── data
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── processed
│   │   └── README.md
│   └── raw
│       └── README.md
├── docs
│   ├── README.md
│   └── img
│       ├── README.md
│       └── (logos)
├── outputs
│   └── README.md
├── scripts
│   ├── 1_download.R
│   ├── 2_wrangle.R
│   ├── 3_analyse.R
│   └── README.md
└── tests
    ├── README.md
    ├── testthat
    │   ├── README.md
    │   ├── helper-functions.R
    │   └── test-check_data.R
    └── testthat.R

Details, rules and recipes are in PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md: documentation of this skeleton, to read and then delete.

Optional add-ons

Optional extras live in separate branches: zenodo, website and githooks. You will not see them unless you look for them: PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md describes each one and links to it.