R Observatory
Every R package on CRAN and Bioconductor, tracked from submission through release, measured at the source, and updated daily.
Data Streams
Independent pipelines collect data from CRAN, Bioconductor, and the repositories behind them. Each runs on its own schedule and publishes to a dedicated repository under the r-observatory GitHub organization.
Incoming Queue
HourlyHourly snapshots of CRAN's FTP incoming directory, with historical data from the cransays project.
cran-queuePackage Feed
Every 6 hours
New, updated, and archived packages detected via
available.packages(),
comparing current state against stored snapshots.
Metadata & Catalogues
DailyCRAN package descriptions, authors, licenses, and reverse dependency counts. Bioconductor package catalog and release lineage. CRAN Task View membership. Version history and archive dates.
Downloads
Daily / MonthlyDownload counts from the Posit CRAN mirror (daily), Bioconductor (monthly), and five Linux package managers: conda-forge, Bioconda, c2d4u, r2u, openSUSE OBS, and Fedora COPR.
Code Analysis
Per release
Per-version code metrics (size, documentation coverage, test-to-code ratio,
dependency counts) for CRAN and Bioconductor, plus test coverage measured
by running each package's tests under
covr.
Repository Signals
WeeklyStars, forks, open issues, pull requests, contributors, and releases from each package's upstream repository, plus weekly tree scans for development tooling and AI coding-tool markers.
vcs-signalsAccessing the Data
Every pipeline publishes to its own GitHub repository. A daily merge job combines
them into a single SQLite database
(observatory.db),
published as a zstd-compressed GitHub release asset.
Combined Database
DailyAll data streams merged into a single SQLite file. Download the latest release to query everything offline.
r-observatory/data releasesHow it's run
The pipelines, the merger, and this site are developed in the open under the r-observatory GitHub organization. The site runs on personal infrastructure. Google AdSense helps offset hosting costs, and Google Analytics tracks usage. Bug reports, feature requests, and corrections go through r-observatory/feedback. For referencing a measurement in published work, see how to cite.
Related Projects
R Mailing List Archives
A searchable, browsable interface to the R Project mailing lists, preserving decades of discussions from language design to statistical methodology.
R-Universe
rOpenSci's platform for browsing R packages across CRAN, Bioconductor, and GitHub, with automated builds, documentation, and API access.
CRANberries
Dirk Eddelbuettel's long-running service tracking new, updated, and removed CRAN packages, with RSS feeds and per-change summaries.
cransays Dashboard
An R-hub project monitoring CRAN's incoming directory, updated hourly. R Observatory's queue history builds on cransays' snapshots.