R Weekly 2026-W30 Chord diagrams, 2026 Grants, LLM Prompting

20 Jul 2026

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This week’s release was curated by Eric Nantz, with help from the R Weekly team members and contributors.

Highlight

• Chord diagrams in R with ggchord2

• R Consortium Awards First Round of 2026 Technical Grants

• R Blackmagic for LLM Prompting

Insights

• From Peer Review to Mentorship: My rOpenSci Story

• Stop Vibe-Checking Your AI Agent: Build an Eval Pipeline Instead

• useR! 2026: CRDTs, community, and contributing back to R

R in the Real World

• Navigating Challenges in Spatial Machine Learning

• Introducing an MCP Server for ORION-DBs

R in Organizations

• R Consortium Awards First Round of 2026 Technical Grants

R in Academia

• A Small Quarto Skill for Better Research Talks

Tutorials

• Four common PERMANOVA mistakes in ecology

• Chord diagrams in R with ggchord2

• R Blackmagic for LLM Prompting

• How to Get Useful Answers from AI: Prompting and Context

• R project template, part two

• Tips for managing your Python & R environments in Positron

• Turn new data into Quarto reports automatically

Resources

• A new perspective on graphic design

New Packages

📦 Keep up to date wtih CRANberries 📦

CRAN

• {stargazer2} 0.1.0: Beautiful Regression Tables for Modern Econometrics Packages

• {hood2net} 1.0.0: Create a Language Network from Neighborhoods of Words

• {flexstanr} 0.1.0: Portable Backend Layer for ‘Stan’ Models

• {UniCensor} 0.1.0: Reproducible Random Samples Under Univariate Censoring Schemes

• {riemannianStats} 0.1.1: Riemannian Statistics for Dimensionality Reduction and Visualization

• {nhanesR} 0.1.5: Download, Parse, and Analyze NHANES Data with Mortality Linkage

• {lingamr} 0.1.2: ‘LiNGAM’ Algorithms for Causal Discovery

• {ggsketch} 2.0.0: Grammar-Native Hand-Drawn Geoms for ‘ggplot2’

• {sybilion} 0.1.0: Official R Client for the ‘Sybilion’ API

• {ggadjustedforest} 0.1.0: Publication Ready Forest Plots for Estimand of Interest

• {dsn} 0.1.0: Data Source Name and Description Helpers for Use with ‘GDAL’

• {AGCA4extremes} 0.1.0: Anchored Geodesic Component Analysis for Extremes

• {easieRnmt} 0.0.5: Local Machine-Translation with ‘EasyNMT’ from ‘R’

• {Saylac} 0.1.3: Spatial Analysis of Yearly, Longitudinal, and Areal Change

• {retentionflow} 0.1.25: Retention Flow Tables and Sankey Diagrams

• {rdtools} 0.1.0: Efficient Manipulation of ‘Rd’ Files and Help Topics

• {modelimportance} 0.1.0: Measuring Contributions of Component Models to Ensemble Forecast Accuracy

• {mixqrgate} 0.1.2: Location-Varying Gating for Mixtures of Quantile Regressions

• {minex} 0.1.0: Automatically Reduce Failing R Scripts to a Minimal Reproducible Example

• {imputeCGM} 0.0.3: Impute Missing Glucose Values in CGM Data

• {ggsnap} 0.1.2: Save a ‘ggplot2’ Plot using ‘+’ Operator

• {dtametaTMB} 0.1.0: Diagnostic Test Accuracy Meta-Analysis using Template Model Builder

• {ct} 0.4.0: Integrated Camera-Trap Data Management and Analysis

• {SidraFacil} 1.0.2: Framework for Automated Download of SIDRA IBGE Data

• {rootWishartHD} 0.95.2: Exact and Log-Scale Tail Probabilities for Roy’s Largest Root

• {regulog} 0.2.1: Tamper-Evident Audit Logging for Regulated Environments

• {prova} 1.0.0: Nonparametric Probabilistic-Statistical Variate Analysis with Automated Markov-Chain Monte Carlo

• {nwsrfsr} 1.0.2: NWS Hydrology Models: SAC-SMA, SNOW17, UH, CONSUSE, CHANLOSS

• {nQuack} 1.0.4: Predicting Ploidal Level from Sequence Data

• {neutroPPS} 0.1.1: Neutrosophic PPSWOR Sampling with NHT and NGREG Estimators

• {lorax} 0.1.0: Speak for the Trees

• {jsplyr} 0.1.0: Manipulate ‘JSON’ Data in the Browser with a ‘dplyr’ Interface

• {IsletCalc} 0.0.1: Calculators for Insulin and Glucagon Release Indices

• {DiscreteMorseR} 1.0.0: Discrete Morse Theory for 3D Meshes Derived from Point Clouds

• {basil} 0.1.0: Survival Prediction for Severe Limb Ischaemia (BASIL Model)

• {ahull3D} 1.0.0: Fast 3D Alpha Hull with Label Propagation

• {gdpar} 0.1.0: General Dynamic Parameter Models via Reference Anchoring

• {cusna} 0.1.0: Native GPU-Accelerated Simulation and Estimation of Network Models

• {tweedieDistr} 0.1.0: Tweedie Distribution

• {roxyreqs} 1.3.0: ‘roxygen2’-Style Metadata for Test Cases and Function Documentation

• {MarineChain} 1.1.0: Blockchain-Enabled Maritime Transportation System Simulator

• {kro.inv.test} 0.1.1: Kronecker-Invariant Tests for High-Dimensional Separability Testing

• {fletcher} 0.1.0: Compute Fletcher Checksums (16, 32, and 64 Bit)

• {BBNI} 0.1.1: Bayesian Inference of Boolean Genetic Networks

• {appac} 4.0.3: Atmospheric Pressure Peak Area Correction for Gas Chromatography with Standard Detectors

• {tantivyr} 0.1.0: Fast Full-Text Search for R with ‘Tantivy’

• {rpic} 0.6.2: The ‘pic’ Graphics Language Rendered to SVG, PNG and PDF

• {lazymatrix} 0.1.0: Perform Complex Matrix Operations Symbolically on Sparse Matrices

• {glydraw} 0.6.3: Draw Beautiful Symbol Nomenclature for Glycans

• {DynCount} 0.1.0: Bayesian Dynamic Models for Poisson and Binomial Time Series

• {circularNet} 0.1.0: Circular Graphical Model Estimation

GitHub or Bitbucket or GitLab

• {californiaalw}: California Assisted Living Waiver facility records and county aggregates prepared from California DHCS data

• Eruption: announcing new R package VolcanoPlotR

Updated Packages

🔍 Search on R-universe 🔍

• qlcal 0.1.2 on CRAN: Fresh Upstream Updates

• httr2 1.3.0

• {mlVAR} 0.7.3: Multi-Level Vector Autoregression - diffify

• {bootnet} 1.9.1: Bootstrap Methods for Various Network Estimation Routines - diffify

• {modelbpp} 0.4.0: Model BIC Posterior Probability - diffify

• {gerefer} 0.1.4: Preparer of Main Scientific References for Automatic Insertion in Academic Papers - diffify

• {wcc} 0.4.1: Windowed Cross Correlation - diffify

• {imdR} 0.4.0: Download, Process and Visualize IMD Gridded Meteorological Data - diffify

• {bnlearn} 5.2.1: Bayesian Network Structure Learning, Parameter Learning and Inference - diffify

• {eyetools} 0.10.0: Analyse Eye Data - diffify

• {chevron} 0.2.13: Standard TLGs for Clinical Trials Reporting - diffify

• {tern} 0.9.11: Create Common TLGs Used in Clinical Trials - diffify

• {messydates} 1.0.0: A Flexible Class for Messy Dates - diffify

• {foghorn} 1.6.2: Summarize CRAN Check Results in the Terminal - diffify

• {future.tests} 1.0.0: Test Suite for ‘Future API’ Backends - diffify

• {gsearly} 1.1.1: Creates Group Sequential Trial Designs when Early Outcomes are Available - diffify

• {NetWeaver} 1.0.0: Graphic Presentation of Complex Genomic and Network Data Analysis - diffify

• {ggChinaFlag} 0.3.0: Drawing Chinese National and Historical Flags with ‘ggplot2’ - diffify

• {GGIRread} 1.0.9: Wearable Accelerometer Data File Readers - diffify

Videos and Podcasts

• Listen to the R-Weekly Highlights Podcast

Shiny Apps

• Five pre-flight checks for your dashboard

• Shiny application demos from Rverse Analytics

• Google Cloud + Shiny Cheatsheet - A command-line workflow for deploying Shiny apps to Google Cloud.

R Internationally

• Crea mapas bivariados en R para visualizar la relación entre dos variables

R Project Updates

Updates from R Core:

Upcoming Events in 3 Months

Events in 3 Months:

• A list of R conferences and meetings

• This week’s local R-User and applied stats events

• Weekly R Workshops for Ukraine

Connect

Join the Data Science Learning Community

rtistry

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Quotes of the Week

Because *I* tend to confuse them... 👽 Mutation testing: you run tests on mutated version of the *code*. E.g. events.digital-research.academy/event/109/co... 🚮 Fuzzy testing: you run tests with all sorts of *inputs* to the code. E.g. events.digital-research.academy/event/109/co... #RStats

[image or embed]

— Maëlle Salmon (@masalmon.eu) July 17, 2026 at 8:45 AM

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