Install an R Package from GitHub into a Pixi Environment (Tutorial)

Open an IDE with a Pixi environment

1. Navigate to HISE, and use your organizational email address to sign in.

2. Either create a Pixi environment from scratch and open an IDE that uses the new environment, or choose a saved Pixi environment and create an IDE from it:
   
   A. To create a new Pixi environment from scratch, follow Step 1 and Step 2 of Save a Custom Pixi Environment (Tutorial) .
   
   B. Alternatively, to use a saved Pixi environment, start at the top navigation menu in HISE. Click RESEARCH, and choose IDEs from the drop‑down menu.

3. On the IDEs page, click CREATE IDE INSTANCE.

4. Choose a Pixi environment that you or a colleague saved. Look for the Pixi package manager tag near the bottom of the card.

5. On the Create an IDE with this package page, click CREATE IDE.

6. On the IDE Settings page, enter the requested information (Name, Description, and HISE Billing Project), and click CREATE.

7. To open the IDE after it builds, click the arrow in the lower‑left corner of the card.
   
   

Activate your Pixi shell

A Pixi shell is a terminal session connected to your Pixi environment. In this step, you’ll install packages within that shell to add them to your Pixi environment.

1. In your IDE, open a terminal (File > New > Terminal, or use the terminal button in the UI).

2. To verify that the Pixi environment is active, do one of the following:
   
   A. Check that your workspace prompt looks similar to this, where (piximinimalv2) is the name of your Pixi environment and newpixienv2 is the name of your IDE:
(piximinimalv2) root@newpixienv2-0:~#
   
   B. Run the following command:



   
   pixi info
   
   In the environments block at the bottom of the output, the prefix location line should indicate that a Pixi environment is active.
   
   C. Run the following commands:



   
   echo "$PIXIINSHELL"
echo "$PIXIPROJECTMANIFEST"
   
   If your Pixi environment is active, the first line returns 1, a flag confirming that you’re inside a Pixi shell. The second line returns a path to your workspace configuration file.
   
   Keep your Pixi shell open. You’ll use it to install your R package from GitHub.

3. To activate the Pixi environment, run the following command:
   
   pixi shell

4. (Required only if your pixi.toml includes more than one Pixi environment option) HISE prompts you to choose which environment to save when you call hp.save_custom_pixi_environment(). Enter the number of the environment you want to use.
   
   

Install the R package from GitHub

In this step, you’ll use the R SDK function installGithubPackageToPixiEnv() to install an R package from a GitHub repository into your Pixi environment.

1. In your browser, sign in to GitHub .

2. Copy the full URL of the repo where your R package code is stored, such as https://github.com/REPO/PACKAGE_NAME.

3. Review any local source packages in your project and remove those you don’t want to include in this environment (for example, .tar.gz files you used for testing).

4. To open an R notebook in the same Pixi environment, use File > New Notebook > R.

5. To load the HISE R SDK, enter the following command in the first cell of your notebook:

   library(hise)

6. Run the SDK call in your R session, replacing the placeholders with the correct values:

   hp.installGithubPackageToPixiEnv(
     url = "https://github.com/REPO/PACKAGE_NAME",
     versionTag = "TAG_OR_BRANCH"
   )
   
   # Replace https://github.com/REPO/PACKAGE_NAME with the GitHub URL you copied.
   # Replace TAG_OR_BRANCH with the Git tag, branch, or commit you want to install (for example, "v1.0.1" or "stage")
   
   /* Example:
   hp.installGithubPackageToPixiEnv(
     url = "https://github.com/ahise/AverypackR",
     versionTag = "7.4.1"
   ) */

   Wait for Pixi to finish the operation. If you receive no error message, the package has been added to your Pixi environment.

Confirm that the package works in your IDE

Confirm that you can load and use the R package.

1. In your IDE, open an R notebook in the same Pixi environment.

2. Load the package you just installed, replacing PACKAGE_NAME with the correct R package name:



   
   library(PACKAGE_NAME)
   
   Example:


library(MOCHA)

3. If no error message appears, the package is available in your Pixi environment.
   
   If you receive an error message such as There is no package called 'PACKAGE_NAME', contact Support .

Save your setup

Using the preceding steps installs the GitHub package only in your current Pixi IDE. If you want future IDEs to have the same configuration, you must save your setup.

1. Keep your IDE open, and follow the instructions in Save a Custom Pixi Environment (Tutorial) .

2. When prompted for the environment name and description, mention the GitHub R package you just installed so that your future self and your team members know it’s included.