R Observatory: Metrics for promises version 1.5.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

promises

1.5.0Package record

Abstractions for Promise-Based Asynchronous Programming

46packages dependsuggested by 25

8.4Mdownloads / year

77.0%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Barret SchloerkeCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗Declared funder: Posit Software, PBC

Provides fundamental abstractions for doing asynchronous programming in R using promises. Asynchronous programming is useful for allowing a single R process to orchestrate multiple tasks in the background while also attending to something else. Semantics are similar to 'JavaScript' promises, but with a syntax that is idiomatic R.

Changes in 1.5.0

OpenTelemetry

promises now integrates with the otel package to provide observability and tracing for asynchronous operations.

local_otel_promise_domain() adds an OpenTelemetry span promise domain to the local scope. This is useful for {coro} operations where encapsulating the coro operations inside with_*() methods is not allowed. (#179)
with_otel_promise_domain() creates a promise domain that restores the currently active OpenTelemetry span from when a call to then() is executed. This enables proper tracing context across asynchronous operations. (#173)
with_otel_span() creates an OpenTelemetry span, executes the given expression within it, and ends the span when the expression completes. This function handles both synchronous and asynchronous (promise-based) operations. For promises, the span is automatically ended when the promise resolves or rejects. To access the OpenTelemetry span within your expression, use otel::get_current_span(). (#198)

Show all changes in 1.5.0Hide the rest of the changes in 1.5.0

New features

Promises are now simple classed environments rather than R6 classes. This reduces their creation overhead by up to 10x, thereby substantially improving performance. (#191)

Life cycle changes

local_ospan_promise_domain(), with_ospan_async(), and with_ospan_promise_domain() are deprecated in favor of local_otel_promise_domain(), with_otel_span(), and with_otel_promise_domain() respectively. (#198)

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

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

install.packages("promises", 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("rstudio/promises")

Development version from rstudio/promises. 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-promises

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-promises

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-promises

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: 2.1 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-07-11
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-07-10
OK13 OK2026-07-01

Show 6 earlier changesHide 6 earlier changes

ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-29
OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK14 OK2026-04-22
ERROR13 OK, 1 ERROR2026-04-18
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 1.5.0

READMEYes · 42 wordsVignettesYes · 9 · dynamicNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 1.5.0Citation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 17 (5 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 67%6 run in a plain check · 3 never run
Exported functions with examples: 64%
Documented parameters: 92%
Return-value docs: 58%
Help pages citing references: 0%

Vignettes (9)

Advanced future and promises usage HTML
An informal introduction to async programming HTML
Case study: converting a Shiny app to async HTML
Combining promises HTML
Launching tasks with future HTML
Launching tasks with mirai HTML
Using promises with Shiny HTML
Why use promises? HTML
Working with promises in R HTML

How these are measured

Downloads

8.4M

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #104 · ~23K/day · ~700.5K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

549K30 days

1.8M90 days

8.4M1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on164.7K r2u128 autocran641.4K conda_forge3.6K c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

rstudio/promises ↗Organization: rstudio

210Stars

16Forks

28Open issues

2Open PRs

10Releases

247Commits

14Commit identities

promisesr

247 commits · Last activity 2026-06-27 · 0% stars, 30d · Default branch at 1.5.0.9000, ahead of CRAN 1.5.0 (checked 2026-10-21)

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 90%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 12
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 1

Stars over time

2025-09-05 · 2082026-07-14 · 210

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

8 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 5 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/rstudio/promises on 2026-10-21.

Continuous integration (1)

GitHub Actions

Governance and community (1)

Code of conduct

Docs source (2)

pkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-06-27

pkgdown site last built 2025-11-05

CRAN release process (2)

cran-comments.mdrevdep/

Show all practicesHide 1 practice

Lint, format, editor (2)

VS CodeRStudio project

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

AI coding toolsBeta

This repository shows signs of AI coding tools.

Claude Codefirst seen 2025-07-31
Seen in the repository: CLAUDE.md
Named in .Rbuildignore: .claude, CLAUDE.md
Named in .gitignore: .claude
GitHub Copilotfirst seen 2025-08-28
Seen in the repository: .github/copilot-instructions.md
Pull request: opened by its own account
Commits: 2 by its own account · at least 3 crediting it in the message

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

17 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing promises adds 9 packages (6 with compiled code, 3.8 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: Rcpp 1.8 MB, rlang 766 KB, cli 629 KB.

Depends (1)

R >= 4.1.0

Imports (7)

fastmap later lifecycle magrittr otel R6 rlang

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (10)

future knitr mirai otelsdk purrr Rcpp rmarkdown spelling testthat vembedr

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

46direct

2,044indirect

Imports 46

Suggested by 25

Show the 48 most downloaded packagesHide the 48 most downloaded packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

Suggests, most downloaded first

later httr2

and 23 more packages that suggest it on CRAN ↗

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (5)

Barret Schloerke

Author, Maintainer since 1.4.0 (2025) · added in 1.4.0

Winston Chang

Author · added in 1.4.0

Joe Cheng

Author

Charlie Gao

Author · added in 1.4.0

Posit Software, PBC

Copyright holder, Funder · added in 1.2.1

Previously maintained by Joe Cheng (1.0.1 to 1.3.3).

Listed in earlier versions (1)

RStudio

no longer listed · 1.0.1 to 1.2.0.1

Releases (11)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
1.5.0Latest
record
2025-11-01 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
local_otel_promise_domain, with_otel_promise_domain, with_otel_span
1.4.0
record
2025-10-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
hybrid_then, local_ospan_promise_domain, with_ospan_async, with_ospan_promise_domain
1.3.3
record
2025-05-29 · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
1.3.2
record
2024-11-28 · diff ↗
1.3.1
record
2024-11-26 · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
1.3.0
record
2024-04-05 · diff ↗
1.2.1
record
2023-08-10 · 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
1.2.0.1
record
2021-02-11 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
future_promise, future_promise_queue
1.1.1
record
2020-06-09 · diff ↗
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24

Show 5 earlier eventsHide 5 earlier events

1.1.0
record
2019-10-05 · diff ↗
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
1.0.1
record
2018-04-13
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21

Package metadata

First published: 2018-04-13
Total releases: 11 / 8 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.1.0
Download size: 3.1 MB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("promises")

Format

Schloerke, B., Posit Software, PBC, Chang, W., Cheng, J., & Gao, C. (2025). promises: Abstractions for Promise-Based Asynchronous Programming (Version 1.5.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.promises

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 promises version 1.5.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-23. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-23, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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