R Observatory: Metrics for askpass version 1.2.1

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

askpass

1.2.1Package record

Password Entry Utilities for R, Git, and SSH

21packages dependsuggested by 12

10Mdownloads / year

5.0%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Jeroen OomsCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

Cross-platform utilities for prompting the user for credentials or a passphrase, for example to authenticate with a server or read a protected key. Includes native programs for MacOS and Windows, hence no 'tcltk' is required. Password entry can be invoked in two different ways: directly from R via the askpass() function, or indirectly as password-entry back-end for 'ssh-agent' or 'git-credential' via the SSH_ASKPASS and GIT_ASKPASS environment variables. Thereby the user can be prompted for credentials or a passphrase if needed when R calls out to git or ssh.

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("askpass", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("r-lib/askpass")

Development version from r-lib/askpass. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-askpass

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-askpass

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-askpass

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 2.0 min · r-devel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 1.2.1

README· In the repository, left out of the releaseVignettesNoNEWSYes · 100% structuredCitation fileNoWebsiteYes

Help pages: 2
Examples that run: 0%1 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran)
Exported functions with examples: 50%
Documented parameters: 100%
Return-value docs: 0%
Help pages citing references: 0%

How these are measured

Downloads

10M

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #79 · ~27.3K/day · ~831.2K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

725.4K30 days

2.4M90 days

10M1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on212.9K r2u27 autocran1.5M conda_forge20.8K c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

r-lib/askpass ↗Organization: r-lib

89Stars

0Forks

4Open issues

0Open PRs

1Releases

54Commits

2Commit identities

54 commits · Last activity 2024-10-03 · +1.1% stars, 30d

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 33%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 1
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2025-08-08 · 872026-10-17 · 89

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

3 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 2 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/r-lib/askpass on 2026-10-21.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, and on R-devel

Lint, format, editor (1)

RStudio project

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (2026-10-20)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

2 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing askpass adds 1 package (1 with compiled code, 19 KB of source tarballs). Heaviest: sys 19 KB.

Depends (0)

none

Imports (1)

sys

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (1)

testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

21direct

3,191indirect

Imports 21

Suggested by 12

Show all 33 packagesHide all 33 packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

openssl gert credentials qpdf keyring ssh comtradr fidelius tuber multilinguer taylor AIscreenR restatis TKCat dtmapi viafoundry newsanchor octopusR easydb traktok theiaR

Suggests, most downloaded first

readxl httr2 usethis move2 oskeyring staRdom atrrr getRad agecrypt rt mditools Rbearcat

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (1)

Jeroen Ooms

Author, Maintainer since 1.0 (2019)

Releases (4)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
1.2.1Latest
record
2024-10-04 · current release · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
1.2.0
record
2023-09-03 · diff ↗
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
1.1
record
2019-01-13 · diff ↗
1.0
record
2019-01-02
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23

Package metadata

First published: 2019-01-02
Total releases: 4 / 7 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Download size: 5.9 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("askpass")

Format

Ooms, J. (2024). askpass: Password Entry Utilities for R, Git, and SSH (Version 1.2.1) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.askpass

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for askpass version 1.2.1 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-24. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-24, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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