Release Notes

Added

• Experimental: { provider = "pixi" } in experimental.r_source_overrides uses R from the active Pixi environment, such as under pixi run arf, without requiring rig (#407).
• Experimental: { provider = "rig-project" } uses R from a synchronized rig proj project in the current directory (#419, #420).
  • With rig 0.11.0, :switch to another R minor version can leave an incompatible project library active (rig#450); use a rig release with the fix and run rig proj sync first.
• Experimental: --r-provider and ARF_R_PROVIDER select pixi or rig-project explicitly. Unlike configured overrides, an unavailable provider is an error rather than a fallback (#411, #420).
• Experimental: arf r resolve and arf headless --json report the selected provider, where it was requested, and its details; failed explicit provider requests include a reason_code (#412, #423).

Changed

• Experimental/Breaking: experimental.r_source_overrides entries use the provider key instead of type (#409).
• --r-home and --with-r-version now take precedence over ARF_R_HOME and ARF_R_VERSION; setting both environment variables is an error (#408).
• :switch now replaces earlier R version and provider options instead of adding to them, and the new session applies rig project activation afresh (#417).
• R source overrides now try later entries when rig is unavailable, and show a single notice if all of them fail (#407).
• Checking an R installation's home directory during startup and arf r resolve now times out instead of waiting indefinitely (#407).
• The interactive help browser stays responsive while searching large help indexes (#404).
• arf -e and arf -f now exit with status 1 when R code fails to parse or raises an error, as Rscript does (#422).

Fixed

• arf -e and arf -f accept R code with CRLF line endings (#422).
• On Windows, Renviron files are read only once at startup and are skipped with --no-environ and --vanilla (#415).
• R's documentation, share, and include directories are found for installations whose R script refers to ${R_HOME} (#415).
• On macOS, the selected R's own libraries take priority when loading, and switching R versions restores the original library search path (#416).
• After changing directories, :restart no longer keeps stale R directory paths from the previous R installation (#421).

Install arf-console 0.7.0-alpha.1

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.7.0-alpha.1/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.7.0-alpha.1/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.7.0-alpha.1

Release Notes

Added

• ARF_CONFIG selects a configuration file when --config is omitted, before falling back to the platform default; :info shows the selected file and source (#402).
• The native help viewer, including pages opened from :help, now supports:
  • Page-local search (#391).
  • Keyboard navigation through R help links and back to previously viewed topics within the same viewer session (#393, #394, #395, #396, #397).
• Experimental: Opt-in integration opens interactive R help results such as ?mean in arf's native help pager when enabled with [experimental.r_help] viewer = "auto" and utils' standard S3 printer is still registered. The default "r" leaves help display to R; existing custom printers are preserved, and unsupported or unavailable requests fall back to R's printer (#384).

Changed

• Breaking: Safe command outcome tracking now requires R_existsVarInFrame. Without this API, including on R versions older than 4.2, command outcomes remain unavailable, history exit statuses are NULL, the prompt shows no status symbol with its normal color, and history-forget does not advance (#381).

Fixed

• Normal arf startup now preserves R's detected C stack limit, allowing recoverable C stack overflow errors without disabling R's stack checks (#380).
• Interactive command outcomes are left unavailable when the options(error) handler or arf's tracking state changes, preserving NULL history statuses, clearing the prompt status symbol, and avoiding incorrect history-forget updates (#381).
• The :help browser prefers fuzzy matches with matching capitalization while retaining case-insensitive alternatives (#382).
• The existing 1000ms completion timeout floor now applies to all R completion paths in function calls and namespace access, preventing missing candidates when a short timeout is configured (#392).

Install arf-console 0.6.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.6.0/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.6.0/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.6.0

Release Notes

Added

• Experimental: Opt-in static formal-name completion for qualified calls such as stats::lm( uses installed package metadata and stored code; enable it with [experimental.r_completion.static.formals] mode = "prefer-static", with exact package/function exclusions and automatic fallback to R completion (#356).
• Newly created history databases and unified exports now carry versioned arf artifact metadata, so imports can identify artifact types independently of filenames while retaining legacy filename detection (#377).

Changed

• The :help browser now indexes installed help metadata without opening compiled help databases, searches all page aliases, and keeps help topics available when unrelated package metadata is missing or damaged (#375).

Fixed

• arf history schema and :history schema now show the effective history directory selected by --history-dir, ARF_HISTORY_DIR, or configuration, including platform-correct database paths (#376).
• The Rd help viewer now renders descriptions using headings, so pages with definition lists such as ggplot2::Coord display correctly (#374).
• Configuration warnings are no longer duplicated across startup re-exec, and arf config check reports deprecated keys without failing validation (#364).
• Windows IPC approval prompts now enter raw terminal mode before accepting input, so Ctrl+C reliably rejects the prompt and returns to the REPL (#361).
• Auto-pairing now uses reedline's live editor buffer, fixing stale state and improving behavior with raw strings, history recall, and pasted input (#330).

Install arf-console 0.5.3

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.3/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.3/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.5.3

Release Notes

Fixed

• Restored the original Unix terminal mode after the first interactive reedline input so terminal security indicators are not triggered by a startup-only ECHO suppression state (#352).

Install arf-console 0.5.2

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.2/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.2/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.5.2

Release Notes

Added

• Experimental: Opt-in json-key R source override provider for reading a version from JSON files such as renv.lock ({ type = "json-key", file = "renv.lock", key = "R.Version" }) (#321).

Fixed

• A continuation prompt set with options(continue = ...) is now classified correctly, so history recording, formatting, and display no longer treat continuation lines as new top-level input. When prompt and continue are set to the same string, arf warns that the two cannot be told apart (#327, #328).
• Vi pending character motions now correctly accept v as the motion character instead of entering visual mode (#329).
• Experimental: IPC PID file ownership and handoff now preserve tracking across interactive :restart and :switch; relative paths and loader re-exec are preserved across the replacement (#342).

Install arf-console 0.5.1

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.1/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.1/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.5.1

Release Notes

Added

• Experimental: arf ipc session and arf headless --json now report an ipc_policy object describing the active IPC policy, including the silent-eval allowlist and whether visible requests require human approval. :info meta command shows the same information for the running session. arf ipc list remains discovery-only; use arf ipc session to inspect policy details (#316).

Changed

• Breaking: Reprex mode is now a single three-state setting (off, on, or format) instead of separate reprex and auto-format switches (#318, #319).
  • Set the startup mode with [startup] reprex, start arf in it with --reprex=<off|on|format>, and switch during a session with :reprex on|off|format.
  • Static reprex settings moved from [mode.reprex] to a top-level [reprex] table, which also gained the formatter setting.
  • format mode now passes code to the formatter over stdin instead of writing a temporary file, and supports the Arity CLI alongside the Air CLI. Air 0.9.0 or later and Arity 0.18.0 or later are supported; formatter configuration is discovered from arf's working directory.
  • formatter = "auto" (the default) prefers Air and then Arity when available. Explicit "air" or "arity" selections are strict and never fall back to the other backend.
  • If formatting fails, arf reports the formatter's stderr and does not evaluate the unformatted code.
  • The old keys and the --auto-format, :autoformat, and :format interfaces are removed without compatibility aliases. arf config check reports all removed reprex keys in a single run.
• Breaking: History storage now has explicit persistent and volatile modes, selected with [history] mode (#314).
  • --no-history now means volatile, session-only history rather than no history: recall, search, the browser, metadata, and IPC history queries all keep working, but nothing is read from or written to disk.
  • When a persistent database cannot be opened, arf falls back to volatile history and reports why instead of silently continuing without history. :info, startup warnings, and the history_runtime object in headless JSON carry the cause.
  • history.disabled and top-level history.dir are still accepted with a migration warning when mode is omitted. With an explicit mode, disabled is ignored and reported, while top-level dir is an error.
• Meta command classification is now stored in history (#312).
• Experimental/Breaking: arf ipc eval without --visible now refuses R code unless every function it calls is allowlisted, so a program with access to the socket can no longer use this path to run arbitrary function calls in the session. Literals and object references still evaluate without configuration. Allow calls with [ipc.eval].allowed_functions or --ipc-eval-allow-function, or opt out for a session with --ipc-eval-unrestricted at startup. The check is syntactic, not an R sandbox (#303).
• Experimental/Breaking: arf ipc send and arf ipc eval --visible now show the submitted code and ask for confirmation before running it in an interactive REPL. :ipc send-policy allow disables the prompt until arf restarts. Headless sessions run visible requests immediately, and the eval allowlist does not apply to either visible path (#303).
• Experimental/Breaking: session_type is now required in session metadata. Session files written by an older arf that lack this field are no longer accepted by arf ipc list or other client commands. Such files are deleted once their process is gone and left untouched while it is still running (#317).

Migration Guide

If you have a configuration file from 0.4.x, apply the following changes. arf config check reports removed reprex keys, and arf warns at startup about deprecated history keys.

Before (0.4.x):

[startup.mode]
reprex = true
autoformat = true

[mode.reprex]
comment = "#> "

[prompt.indicators]
reprex = "[reprex] "
autoformat = "[format] "

[history]
disabled = false
dir = "/custom/path"

After (0.5.0):

[startup]
reprex = "format"   # "off", "on", or "format"

[reprex]
comment = "#> "
formatter = "auto"  # "auto", "air", or "arity"

[prompt.indicators]
reprex = "[reprex] "
reprex_format = "[format] "

[history]
mode = { dir = "/custom/path" }   # or "persistent" / "volatile"

The command-line and meta command interfaces changed accordingly:

Fixed

• A command that prompted for input (readline(), menu(), browser()) recorded its success or failure against the answer typed at that prompt instead of against the command itself (#312).
• A history database error while saving a command no longer aborts the session (#312).
• Importing an arf history database now preserves session, hostname, working directory, duration, exit status, and metadata instead of only the command and timestamp (#313).
• Re-importing a source repairs those columns on entries an earlier import left empty without replacing values already recorded (#313).
• Importing a history database no longer writes to the source database (#313).
• Importing a file that is not an arf history database now reports an error instead of silently importing nothing (#313).
• macOS binaries no longer fail to start with a missing liblzma library error (#304).
• Experimental: IPC approval prompts previously showed only the first few hundred characters of submitted code while arf ran all of it, allowing executable code to be hidden beyond the visible portion. The prompt now shows the complete submitted code with control characters escaped (#315).

Install arf-console 0.5.0

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.0/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.0/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.5.0

Release Notes

Changed

• Experimental/Breaking: arf ipc eval without --visible now refuses R code unless every function it calls is allowlisted, so a program with access to the socket can no longer run arbitrary code in the session; literals and object references still evaluate without configuration. Allow calls with [ipc.eval].allowed_functions or --ipc-eval-allow-function, or opt out for a session with --ipc-eval-unrestricted at startup. The check is syntactic, not an R sandbox. (#303)
• Experimental/Breaking: arf ipc send and arf ipc eval --visible now show the code and ask for confirmation before running it in an interactive REPL; :ipc send-policy allow suspends the prompt until arf restarts. Headless sessions run immediately, and the eval allowlist does not apply to either path. (#303)

Fixed

• macOS binaries no longer fail to start with a missing liblzma library error (#304).

Install arf-console 0.5.0-rc.1

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.0-rc.1/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.5.0-rc.1/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.5.0-rc.1

Release Notes

Added

• ARF_R_HOME and ARF_R_VERSION can now select the R installation through environment variables (#271).

• --with-r-version and :switch now accept version ranges (^4.4, ~4.4, >=4.3, <5.0, *) in addition to exact and partial version numbers such as 4.4.2 and 4.4 (#271). Range operators come from the convention Cargo and npm use; R's own version numbers are plain major.minor.patch releases, so prerelease identifiers and build metadata are rejected.

• Experimental: arf can now read the R version a project has pinned and start that version instead of the configured default (#271, #288).
  It is opt-in through experimental.r_source_overrides in the arf.toml config.

  For example, the following configuration looks for two TOML files named rproject.toml and rproj.toml in the current directory, in order:

  [experimental]
  r_source_overrides = [
    { type = "toml-key", file = "rproject.toml", key = "project.r_version" },
    { type = "toml-key", file = "rproj.toml", key = "r.version" },
  ]

  If arf finds an R version defined in one of these files, it will select a matching version from the list of versions installed by rig and start that R.
  If none of them yields a matching version, arf falls back to the R selected by startup.r_source.

  The first of the two, rproject.toml, is used by rv.
  It looks like this:

  [project]
  r_version = "4.4"

  The second, rproj.toml, is a draft proposal from Tidyup 9.
  Unlike rv's rproject.toml, it also supports Cargo-style version ranges:

  [r]
  version = ">= 4.1.0, < 4.5.0"

  For now, it seems neither of these formats is widely adopted, so arf introduces a generic toml-key type that allows us to specify the filename and key path and supports Cargo-style version ranges.
  Of course, we can also support other TOML files with different names and keys for specifying the R version.

• Experimental: arf ipc list now reports a session_type field ("headless" or "interactive") for each session, so external clients can tell an agent-started headless session from an interactive REPL a person is using before sending it a shutdown. Sessions started by an older arf report null, which clients should treat as unknown (#283).

• Experimental: arf ipc session, arf ipc list, and arf headless --json now report r_home, the R installation the session is using, so an editor can use the same R instead of discovering one for itself. Sessions started by an older arf omit it, which clients should treat as unknown (#294).

• Experimental: arf r resolve lets external tools such as editors learn which R arf would use without starting R. It always emits JSON on success (#290, #291, #293).

Changed

• Partial version numbers passed to --with-r-version and :switch (e.g. 4.4) now match only that release series (4.4.x) instead of any version starting with the same text (#271).

Fixed

• arf could fail to start a different R version when R_HOME was set in the environment to point at another R installation (#295).
• Switching R versions with :switch no longer leaves stale .libPaths() entries from the previous R version, including after a :restart. R-related variables you set before starting arf are kept, apart from R_HOME and LD_LIBRARY_PATH, which are always removed. :restart still leaves the environment untouched (#295).
• Flags placed before a subcommand no longer get silently ignored; arf now reports the error and explains where the flag belongs (#275).
• Experimental: Commands sent with arf ipc send are now recorded in the history database, so they can be recalled with Ctrl+R, the history browser, and the up arrow like typed commands. Previously they were echoed and evaluated but only saved in some cases, depending on when the request arrived (#268).
• Experimental: IPC requests containing incomplete R expressions are now rejected before they can enter the continuation prompt.

Install arf-console 0.4.5

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.5/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.5/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.4.5

Release Notes

Changed

• Tab completion of package names and the :help browser (search and rendering) are now noticeably faster, especially with many installed packages, since they read R's on-disk package metadata directly instead of evaluating R code for most lookups (#257).
• The :help browser now renders the Arguments section as a list instead of a table, so argument descriptions containing bullet lists or multiple paragraphs are shown in full rather than squashed onto one line.

Fixed

• arf ipc send input that produced no R output (e.g. assignments) could vanish from the REPL instead of being echoed, while inputs that produced output were shown reliably (#265).

Install arf-console 0.4.4

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.4/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.4/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.4.4

Release Notes

Fixed

• The help browser (:help), tab completion, and object inspection no longer silently overwrite user variables in .GlobalEnv (e.g. variables named db or base were at risk) (#233).
• Support R installations on RHEL and AlmaLinux by checking /usr/lib64/R/lib/libR.so and using lazy symbol resolution when loading libR (#232).
• Fixed .Rprofile not being loaded after :restart! on macOS/Linux when R_PROFILE_USER is set to an empty string in the environment. The fix from #226 applied only to Windows; this extends the same behaviour to Unix where R handles profile loading internally (#234).
• The help browser (:help) no longer leaks raw HTML tags from some Rd documentation, which made pages like pak::FAQ unreadable (#244).
• On macOS/Linux, Ctrl+C (SIGINT) delivered during R evaluation could terminate the session instead of cancelling the running computation. Ctrl+C now interrupts the evaluation and returns to the prompt, as on Windows (#245).
• Updated to tree-sitter-r 1.3.0 and adjusted the input validator so unclosed raw strings (e.g. r"(...) are still correctly detected as incomplete input rather than being sent to R prematurely (#247).

Install arf-console 0.4.3

Install prebuilt binaries via shell script

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.3/arf-console-installer.sh | sh

Install prebuilt binaries via powershell script

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm https://github.com/eitsupi/arf/releases/download/v0.4.3/arf-console-installer.ps1 | iex"

Download arf-console 0.4.3