posit-dev / r-cran-status

CRAN Package Status

Check a package's submission/review state, a specific historical version's
fate (e.g. {package} {version}, as in btw v1.4.0), or its current
R CMD check results across CRAN's test platforms.

"CRAN status" is ambiguous between two questions:

• Submission status: is/was this package (or version) in review,
  published, archived, or rejected? See "Submission Status".

• Check results: is the published version passing R CMD check on all
  platforms, or does it have WARN/ERROR/NOTE flags risking removal? See
  "Check Results".

CRAN's servers are a shared, unpaid resource. Never issue requests in
parallel or in a tight loop — pause briefly (e.g. sleep 1) between
requests, stop looping as soon as a match is found, and avoid re-fetching a
page you've already checked in this session.

Workflow

1. Ask for the package name if not provided. A version may also be given
   (e.g. btw v1.4.0 or btw 1.4.0); strip any leading v.

2. Decide which question is being asked:

   • Version given, or request mentions submission, review, the queue, or
     rejection/archival → Submission Status.

   • Request mentions checks, R CMD check, WARN/ERROR/NOTE, or
     platforms/flavors → Check Results.

   • If genuinely ambiguous (e.g. just "check the CRAN status of x"), ask
     which is meant, or check both and report both.

3. Follow the relevant section below and report the result.

Submission Status

1. Check the currently published version first (see below).

2. If no version was requested, or it matches the current version: report it
   as the current, published release. Skip to step 5 unless it's absent from
   PACKAGES, in which case continue to step 3.

3. If a prior check this conversation already located the package in a
   stage or reviewer folder, check that folder first, then forward from it
   in the pipeline order (see "CRAN Review Stages") — don't re-sweep from
   the start. Otherwise, sweep all stage and reviewer folders.

4. Search the incoming/ stage folders (see below).
5. Search the reviewer-assigned folders (see below).

6. If a specific version was requested and doesn't match the current
   published version (or the package isn't published at all), check the
   CRAN Archive for that version (see below).

7. Report the result (see "Reporting Submission Status Results").

CRAN Review Stages

Listed in typical pipeline order — a package usually moves top to bottom,
though not every package passes through every stage:

• inspect / newbies: awaiting initial manual inspection (newbies is for
  first-time submitters)

• pending: awaiting closer review
• human/<initials>: assigned to a CRAN reviewer
• pretest: automated checks (re)running

• waiting: CRAN is waiting for a maintainer response (loops back to
  pretest once the maintainer responds)

• recheck: reverse-dependency checks
• publish: approved and awaiting publication
• archive: rejected

Checking Incoming Stage Folders

Replace {package} with the actual package name. Start at the last-known
stage if one exists (see Submission Status step 3), else at inspect:

for stage in inspect newbies pending pretest waiting recheck publish archive; do
  curl -Ls "https://cran.r-project.org/incoming/$stage/" |
    grep -Eio '[^"]*{package}[^"]*' &&
    echo "Stage: $stage" && break
  sleep 1
done

Checking Reviewer-Assigned Folders

Reviewer-initials folders (e.g. human/KH) change as CRAN's team changes,
so discover them from the incoming/ listing instead of a fixed set: any
folder there that isn't one of the stage names above is a reviewer folder.

reviewer_folders=$(
  curl -Ls "https://cran.r-project.org/incoming/" |
    grep -Eio '<a href="[^"]+/">' |
    sed -E 's/<a href="([^"]+)\/">/\1/' |
    grep -Ev '^(inspect|newbies|pending|pretest|publish|recheck|archive|waiting|special)$'
)

for stage in $reviewer_folders; do
  curl -Ls "https://cran.r-project.org/incoming/$stage/" |
    grep -Eio '[^"]*{package}[^"]*' &&
    echo "Stage: human/$stage" && break
  sleep 1
done

Checking Whether the Package Is Already Published

curl -Ls https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES |
  awk -v pkg="{package}" '
    $0 == "Package: " pkg { found=1 }
    found && /^Version:/ { print; exit }
  '

A printed Version: line is the current CRAN version. Remember it — needed
later to say whether a requested older version was "superseded by" it.

Checking a Specific Version in the CRAN Archive

Superseded versions move out of src/contrib/ into a per-package archive
folder. This Archive is unrelated to the archive incoming/ stage above
(that means "rejected"; this means "an older version, since superseded").

curl -Ls "https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/{package}/" |
  grep -Eio '[^"]*{package}_{version}\.tar\.gz[^"]*'

A matching .tar.gz filename means that exact version was published and has
since been superseded.

Reporting Submission Status Results

• No version requested:

  • Present in PACKAGES: report as published, with current version.

  • Else found in an incoming/ or reviewer folder: report the folder name
    and meaning from the stage list above.

  • Else: report it wasn't found in CRAN's submission queue or index.

• Specific version requested:

  • Matches current version in PACKAGES: report as the current release.

  • Else found in the CRAN Archive: report it was published and has been
    superseded by the current version (from PACKAGES), e.g. "available in
    the archive, superseded by v1.5.0".

  • Else the package (any version) is found in an incoming/ or reviewer
    folder: report that stage, noting the requested version wasn't a past
    release.

  • Else: report the requested version wasn't found (current, archived, or
    in-review).

Check Results

CRAN publishes per-platform R CMD check results for every published
package at https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_results_{package}.html.
WARN or ERROR results persisting more than ~2-4 weeks risk archival by CRAN.

Fetch and simplify the results table:

curl -Ls "https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_results_{package}.html" |
  grep '<tr> <td>' |
  sed -E 's/<[^>]+>/ /g' |
  awk '{print $1": "$NF}'

Prints one flavor: STATUS line per row, e.g.:

r-devel-linux-x86_64-debian-clang: OK
r-oldrel-windows-x86_64: ERROR

Status is OK, NOTE, WARN, or ERROR. For any non-OK flavor, full
failure output is further down the same page under "Check Details" — fetch
again without stripping tags and read the <pre>-formatted section after
the failing flavor's Version: / Check: / Result: lines.

A 404 means no CRAN check history — likely not currently published. Check
submission status instead.

Reporting Check Results

• Every flavor OK: report the package passes checks on all platforms.

• Any flavor NOTE/WARN/ERROR: list affected flavors and status,
  summarize failure reason(s) from "Check Details", and note that
  persistent WARN/ERROR can lead to archival.

• Page 404s: report no check results exist; check/report submission status
  instead.