Modern R workflow (ft. Positron and AI)

September 14, 2026 posit::conf(2026)

Shortlink to this page: pos.it/modern-r-workflow

Setup

Please check the Setup Instructions for recommended steps to take before the workshop.

Schedule

Time	Activity
09:00	Welcome
09:00 - 10:30	Helping yourself Positron tour
10:30 - 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 - 12:30	Intro to Posit Assistant How do agents work? Skills and AGENTS.md
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch break
13:30 - 15:00	Workflow
15:00 - 15:30	Coffee break
15:30 - 17:00	Best practices feedback loop

Instructors

Hadley Wickham

Hadley Wickham is Chief Scientist at Posit, where (among other things) he leads the tidyverse team. He builds tools (both computational and cognitive) that make data science easier, faster, and more fun. He’s the creator of packages like ggplot2, dplyr, and devtools and an author of several books on R, including R for Data Science and R Packages.

GitHub · Bluesky · LinkedIn

Jenny Bryan

Jenny Bryan is a Senior Software Engineer at Posit, where she works on the tidyverse/r-lib and Positron teams. A recovering biostatistician, she takes special delight in eliminating the small agonies of data analysis. She’s the creator of packages like googlesheets4 and reprex and an author of the book R Packages and the Happy Git with R guide.

GitHub · Bluesky

Description

This workshop is designed for data scientists who are comfortable with using R for data analysis and ready to level up their software engineering skills. Led by Hadley Wickham and Jenny Bryan, you’ll learn how to write more robust, maintainable R code while taking advantage of modern tooling (cough AI cough) that can dramatically accelerate your productivity.

We’ll cover three interconnected themes. First, you’ll learn contemporary R development practices—writing functions, organizing code into packages, testing, and documentation strategies that scale from personal projects to team collaboration. Second, we’ll explore how AI assistants like Claude Code can help you write better R code faster. Third, we’ll share practical tips for getting the most out of Positron, including features specifically designed to make R development and data exploration more fluid.

Throughout the workshop, we’ll emphasize the connections between these topics: how good development practices make AI assistance more effective, how modern tooling reduces friction so you can focus on the interesting problems, and how to build workflows that are both efficient and reproducible. You’ll leave with concrete skills you can apply immediately to your own projects.

Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with R programming (e.g., using the tidyverse). You should have written a few functions before, but don’t need any experience with package development, AI coding tools, or Positron. If you have taken a package development workshop before, you’ll learn what’s changed in our workflows, especially how we’re using AI and Positron effectively.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.