Generate a Dockerfile (and .dockerignore) for an aurora app

Writes a Dockerfile that installs system deps, R packages (incl. plumber2 and aurora), copies the app, and runs api.R. The image suits plain Docker or a ShinyProxy container. A .dockerignore is written if absent.

Usage

aurora_dockerfile(
  dir = ".",
  flavor = c("debian", "alpine"),
  base = NULL,
  sysdeps = "auto",
  port = 8000L,
  aurora_source = "aurora-govpe/aurora-rpkg@v0.1.12",
  tz = "America/Recife",
  locale = "pt_BR.UTF-8",
  write = TRUE
)

Arguments

dir: App directory.
flavor: Base-image flavor: "debian" (rocker + PPM binaries) or "alpine" (r-minimal + source builds).
base: Base Docker image. NULL (default) resolves per flavor: rocker/r-ver:4.4.1 (debian) or rhub/r-minimal (alpine).
sysdeps: "auto" uses a curated default set of system packages for the flavor (covers the plumber2 + bslib baseline plus common TLS/curl/db/geo/ graphics needs); or pass a character vector to set them explicitly. For "alpine" this is the build (-t) set; runtime libs use a curated default. (pkg_sysreqs() auto-resolution proved unreliable, so aurora ships comprehensive defaults instead – extra -dev packages are build-time only.)
port: Port exposed and bound (via the AURORA_PORT env var).
aurora_source: pak/remotes spec used to install aurora in the image. Defaults to the pinned release "aurora-govpe/aurora-rpkg@v0.1.12" for reproducible builds. Avoid an unpinned moving ref (a branch): it interacts badly with Docker's layer cache, which can silently keep an old commit on rebuild. Bump this default (or pass an explicit @tag) per release.
tz: Timezone baked into the image as ENV TZ= (set before R starts, so it applies to system logs, R's date-times, and DB drivers). Defaults to "America/Recife"; pass NULL (or "") to omit the line. On "alpine" the image also gets tzdata and TZDIR so the zone actually resolves.
locale: Locale baked as ENV LANG=/LC_ALL=. Defaults to "pt_BR.UTF-8". "C.UTF-8" is UTF-8 and available everywhere (no generation needed). A specific locale like "pt_BR.UTF-8" needs the matching locale in the image: on "debian" (glibc) it is present; on "alpine" aurora adds the musl-locales/musl-locales-lang packages so it works – though musl's locale support is partial (charset and messages apply, but collation falls back to C).
write: Write the file (TRUE) or return its text (FALSE).

Value

The Dockerfile path (if written) or its contents, invisibly.

Details

Two flavors:

"debian" (default) – rocker/r-ver; installs R packages as binaries from Posit Package Manager (fast builds; amd64). Best for heavy/geo apps and fast CI. Larger image.
"alpine" – rhub/r-minimal; a tiny image (~25 MB base) that compiles every package from source via installr (no CRAN binaries; builds are slower). Best when image size matters or you need native arm64. Tune the Alpine build/runtime system deps via sysdeps if your packages need more.

Runtime R packages are detected by scanning routers/, helpers/, and api.R. To pin them explicitly (reproducible images), set a packages: list in _aurora.yml; plumber2 and aurora are always added.