R Observatory: Metrics for ellmer version 0.5.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

ellmer

0.5.0Package record

Chat with Large Language Models

27packages dependsuggested by 35

153.8Kdownloads / year

–test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Hadley WickhamCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗Declared funder: Posit Software, PBC

Chat with large language models from a range of providers including 'Claude' https://claude.ai, 'OpenAI' https://chatgpt.com, and more. Supports streaming, asynchronous calls, tool calling, and structured data extraction.

Changes in 0.5.0

Lifecycle changes

chat_github() and models_github() are now defunct because GitHub Models has been retired (@thisisnic, #1069).
tool() functions that return complex objects like data frames or lists now produce a deprecation warning. Tool functions should return a character vector, an atomic vector, a JSON string (from jsonlite::toJSON()), or a Content object. Use jsonlite::toJSON() to convert complex objects before returning (@thisisnic, #858).

New features

When running on Posit Connect, ellmer now forwards the viewer's session token to Connect's LLM gateway so gateway usage can be attributed to the viewer. This happens automatically for Shiny content and only affects requests to the gateway (@karawoo, #1105).
chat_aws_bedrock() gains an api argument to select between the Converse API on the bedrock-runtime endpoint and the Anthropic Messages or OpenAI Responses APIs on the bedrock-mantle endpoint. This makes models that Converse can't serve, like Claude Mythos and the GPT-5 family, available on Bedrock. The API is picked from model by default, so you only need to set api for models ellmer doesn't recognize (#1064).
Chat gains experimental $file_upload(), $file_list(), $file_get(), $file_download(), and $file_delete() methods for managing provider-hosted files with chat_openai(), chat_anthropic(), and chat_google_gemini(): upload a file once, then pass the returned reference to $chat() instead of re-sending the file's contents every turn. Uploads expire after 48 hours by default; use expires_in_h to change this. claude_file_upload() and friends and google_upload() are deprecated in favor of these (@thisisnic, #1091).
Chat gains $get_rounds() and $last_round() methods for retrieving the conversation history grouped into Rounds. The new Round class groups a Chat's flat turn history into rounds, each containing a user turn and the assistant/tool-result turns that follow it (#507).
Chat gains $on_request_start() and $on_request_end() callbacks that fire before and after each model request, including each round of the tool loop. $on_request_start() receives the turns about to be sent, so you can inspect the request or compact the conversation with $set_turns(). $on_request_end() receives the assistant turn just returned, so you can track latency or cost per request (@kaipingyang, #1051).
Chat$stream() and Chat$stream_async() gain a type argument for streaming structured output from providers with native support (@cpsievert, #1102).
Chat gains a $token_count() method that estimates the number of tokens in new input using the provider's token counting endpoint (@thisisnic, #814).
claude_tool_web_search(), claude_tool_web_fetch(citations = TRUE), google_tool_web_search(), and openai_tool_web_search() now return citations, which are preserved in chat history and streamed content and shown as cited sources in console output (@cpsievert, #775).

Show all changes in 0.5.0Hide the rest of the changes in 0.5.0

New content_document_file() and content_document_url() send text-based documents like CSV, markdown, and code files to the model, and content_pdf_url() now lets providers that can fetch URLs do so themselves (@thisisnic, #1090).
New Model class separates model configuration (name, parameters, extra arguments) from the Provider class, which now only captures API endpoint details. Chat gains a new $get_model_object() method to retrieve the Model object. provider@model, provider@params, and provider@extra_args are deprecated and will be removed in a future release; use the Model object instead (@thisisnic, #1098).
New models_update_prices() downloads the latest model pricing data from GitHub and saves it to a local cache. Subsequent calls to token_usage() and related functions will use the updated prices (#968).
tool_context() lets a tool access its calling context, including the ContentToolRequest and the conversation history, during a tool call. with_tool_context() and local_tool_context() support testing tools that use it (#871).

Minor improvements and bug fixes

Default models have been updated for a number of providers (@thisisnic, #1040, #1066, #1125):
chat_anthropic() now uses claude-sonnet-5.
chat_aws_bedrock() now uses us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-5.
chat_databricks() now uses databricks-claude-sonnet-5.
chat_google_gemini() and chat_google_vertex() now use gemini-3.7-flash.
chat_huggingface() now uses Qwen/Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507.
chat_openai() now uses gpt-5.6-terra.
chat_openrouter() now uses gpt-5.6-terra.
chat_posit() now uses claude-sonnet-5.
chat_snowflake() now uses claude-sonnet-5.
chat_anthropic() and chat_aws_bedrock() now handle empty responses from the model (@thisisnic, #1070).
chat_anthropic() now defaults base_url to the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL environment variable, and chat_aws_bedrock() to AWS_ENDPOINT_URL_BEDROCK_RUNTIME or AWS_ENDPOINT_URL_BEDROCK_MANTLE depending on api, matching the official SDKs (@karawoo, #1103).
chat_anthropic() now handles the fallback content block returned when a model's server-side refusal fallback (server-side-fallback-2026-06-01) is triggered (@simonpcouch, #1057).
chat_aws_bedrock() now handles thinking blocks with no text (@thisisnic, #1085).
chat_aws_bedrock() now supports bearer token authentication for enterprise API gateways (@thisisnic, #1002).
chat_databricks() now supports models that return content as an array of typed objects (e.g. databricks-gpt-oss-120b), capturing reasoning parts as thinking content (@thisisnic, #1078).
chat_databricks() now works with tools that have no arguments (@thisisnic, #1084).
Chat gains a conversation_id active binding. When set, it is recorded on the OpenTelemetry spans emitted for each model call so that tracing backends can group spans belonging to the same conversation (@cpsievert, #1106).
chat_google_gemini() now supports mixing regular tools with built-in tools like google_tool_web_search() (@thisisnic, #1054).
chat_openrouter() now preserves provider error messages (@xmarquez, #1059).
params(top_k = ) is now sent as top_k rather than top_logprobs for OpenAI-based providers (@thisisnic, #1113).

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("ellmer", 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("tidyverse/ellmer")

Development version from tidyverse/ellmer. 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-ellmer

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-ellmer

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-ellmer

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: 7.7 min · r-devel-linux-x86_64-debian-clang

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-07-19
ERROR10 OK, 3 ERROR2026-07-07
OK13 OK2026-06-11

Show 6 earlier changesHide 6 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-09
OK13 OK2026-06-08
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-07
OK13 OK2026-06-01
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-05-29
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 0.5.0

READMEYes · 956 wordsVignettesYes · 6 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 0.5.0Citation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 61 (3 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 44%22 run in a plain check (3 of them under a condition) · 28 never run
Exported functions with examples: 83%
Documented parameters: 93%
Return-value docs: 78%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (6)

How these are measured

Downloads

153.8K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #1,047 · ~421/day · ~12.8K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

12.7K30 days

36.7K90 days

153.8K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on2.5K r2u4 autocran2.5K conda_forge

How downloads are counted

Repository

tidyverse/ellmer ↗Organization: tidyverse

620Stars

144Forks

52Open issues

25Open PRs

11Releases

747Commits

62Commit identities

747 commits · Last activity 2026-10-21 · +1.3% stars, 30d · Default branch at 0.5.0.9000, ahead of CRAN 0.5.0 (checked 2026-10-18)

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 90%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 24
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 13

Stars over time

2025-10-21 · 5352026-10-21 · 620

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

15 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 7 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/tidyverse/ellmer on 2026-10-18.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

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

Docs source (4)

README.Rmdpkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-10-18 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

pkgdown site last built 2026-10-15

Coverage (1)

Coverage reporting (Codecov)

Reproducibility and dev environment (1)

data-raw/

Show all practicesHide 3 practices

CRAN release process (2)

cran-comments.mdrevdep/

Lint, format, editor (4)

Lint workflowAirVS CodeRStudio project

Git structural (1)

.gitattributes

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

Claude Codefirst seen 2025-07-19
Seen in the repository: .claude, .claude/skills
Named in .Rbuildignore: .claude
Pull request it wrote: opened by a project member
Commits: at least 5 crediting it in the message

From outside contributors

Claude Code
Pull requests: 6 from outside contributors, first on 2026-02-14, 6 from forks

Models named in its commits

Claude Opus 4.62 commits · May to Jun 2026
Claude Fable 5.11 commit · Oct 2026
Claude Opus 4.71 commit · Jun 2026

Counts are commits, not lines of code. Commits by a tool's accounts count once across all of its accounts. Commits crediting it are the largest count among its credit lines, a minimum.How this is detected·Detection ruleset v4 (updated 2026-09-27)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

30 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing ellmer adds 25 packages (16 with compiled code, 13 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: promises 3.1 MB, Rcpp 1.8 MB, openssl 1.1 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 4.1

Imports (13)

cli coro glue httr2 jsonlite later lifecycle promises R6 rlang (>= 1.3.0)S7 tibble vctrs

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (17)

connectcreds curl gargle jose knitr magick openssl otel otelsdk paws.common png rmarkdown shiny shinychat testthat vcr withr

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

27direct

2indirect

Depends 1 · Imports 26

Suggested by 35

Show the 48 most downloaded packagesHide the 48 most downloaded packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

Suggests, most downloaded first

ragnar nonmem2rx tidyllm PhenotypeR streamy autoslider.core finnts Certara.RsNLME acR foundryR blockr.core cohortBuilder AutoDeskR ritalic ReliaGrowR soilKey Certara.Xpose.NLME ravepipeline hal shinyglass tidyprompt

and 14 more packages that suggest it on CRAN ↗

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (6)

Hadley Wickham

Author, Maintainer since 0.1.0 (2025)

Garrick Aden-Buie

Author · added in 0.2.0

Joe Cheng

Author

Aaron Jacobs

Author · added in 0.1.1

Barret Schloerke

Author · added in 0.3.0

Posit Software, PBC

Copyright holder, Funder

Releases (11)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

0.5.0Latest
record
2026-09-04 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 19 exports
Chat, ContentCitation, ContentDocument, ContentToolRequestFetch, ContentToolRequestSearch, ContentToolResponseFetch, ContentToolResponseSearch, ContentUploaded, Model, Round, Source, ToolDef, WebSource, content_document_file, content_document_url, local_tool_context, models_update_prices, tool_context, with_tool_context
0.4.2
record
2026-07-13 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
chat_posit, models_deepseek, models_groq, models_posit
0.4.1
record
2026-05-07 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
AssistantPartialTurn, chat_lmstudio, models_lmstudio, stream_controller
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
0.4.0
record
2025-11-15 · diff ↗ ·
removed 4 exports
chat_azure, chat_bedrock, chat_cortex, chat_gemini

added 19 exports
AssistantTurn, SystemTurn, TypeIgnore, UserTurn, chat_openai_compatible, claude_file_delete, claude_file_download, claude_file_get, claude_file_list, claude_file_upload, claude_tool_web_fetch, claude_tool_web_search, df_schema, google_tool_web_fetch, google_tool_web_search, models_claude, models_mistral, openai_tool_web_search, type_ignore
0.3.2
record
2025-09-04 · diff ↗
0.3.1
record
2025-08-24 · diff ↗
0.3.0
record
2025-07-25 · diff ↗ ·
removed 1 export
chat_cortex_analyst

added 6 exports
batch_chat_text, chat, contents_record, contents_replay, models_github, parallel_chat_text
0.2.1
record
2025-06-03 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
TypeJsonSchema, type_from_schema
0.2.0
record
2025-05-18 · diff ↗ ·
added 28 exports
ContentThinking, batch_chat, batch_chat_completed, batch_chat_structured, chat_anthropic, chat_aws_bedrock, chat_azure_openai, chat_cloudflare, chat_google_gemini, chat_google_vertex, chat_huggingface, chat_mistral, chat_portkey, google_upload, interpolate_package, models_anthropic, models_aws_bedrock, models_google_gemini, models_google_vertex, models_ollama, models_openai, models_portkey, models_vllm, parallel_chat, parallel_chat_structured, params, tool_annotations, tool_reject
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
0.1.1
record
2025-02-07 · diff ↗ ·
added 7 exports
ContentPDF, chat_cortex_analyst, chat_deepseek, chat_openrouter, chat_snowflake, content_pdf_file, content_pdf_url
0.1.0
record
2025-01-09
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24

Package metadata

First published: 2025-01-09
Total releases: 11 / 1 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.1
Download size: 3.0 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("ellmer")

Format

Wickham, H., Posit Software, PBC, Aden-Buie, G., Cheng, J., Jacobs, A., & Schloerke, B. (2026). ellmer: Chat with Large Language Models (Version 0.5.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.ellmer

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 ellmer version 0.5.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-22. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-22, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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