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Next major release 3.0.0-rc.0#1684

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Next major release 3.0.0-rc.0#1684
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@randy3k randy3k commented Mar 14, 2026 •
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There are a few things that are still not working (e.g. live share). It won't be merged anytime soon. The sess package is now bundled with the VSCode extension, we might move it to its own repository in the future.

Everything below this sentence was generated automatically.

🚀 Feature: Migrate Session Watcher to WebSockets & JSON-RPC 2.0

📝 Overview

This PR introduces a major architectural upgrade to vscode-R by replacing the legacy, file-based session watcher with a high-performance, token-authenticated IPC (Inter-Process Communication) mechanism.

The new system operates over a pure WebSocket architecture using JSON-RPC 2.0, enabling reliable, bidirectional communication between the R session and the VS Code extension.

✨ Key Changes

1. New sess R Package

  • Introduced the sess package to handle the server-side IPC.
  • Provides token-authenticated WebSocket connections instead of writing state to local temporary files.
  • Includes comprehensive hooks for the R environment (sess::register_hooks) and rstudioapi emulation.

2. Client Session Manager Modernization

  • src/session.ts refactored: Heavily refactored the extension's session manager to act as a JSON-RPC client/server.
  • Added bidirectional RPC dispatching and handling, allowing the extension to actively query the R session instead of just reacting to file system changes.

3. Viewer Architecture Overhaul

  • Plot Viewer: Refactored into a modular architecture (httpgdViewer.ts and standardViewer.ts).
  • Help & Web Viewers: Modernized helpViewer and webViewer implementations to cleanly integrate with the new IPC layer.

4. Comprehensive Testing & CI Modernization

  • Integration Tests: Added new integration test suites specifically for the modernized session (session.test.ts) and terminal (terminal.test.ts).
  • CI Pipelines: Updated GitHub Actions (main.yml, pre-release.yml, release.yml) to support the new testing architecture and package building steps.

💡 Motivation & Background

The previous file-based session watcher (writing state to .vscode-R directories) was prone to race conditions, slow I/O, and was strictly one-way (R -> VS Code).

By migrating to WebSockets and JSON-RPC 2.0:

  • Reliability: Communication is synchronous and direct, eliminating I/O bottlenecks.
  • Security: Sessions are now authenticated via random tokens upon initialization.
  • Extensibility: The bidirectional protocol lays the foundation for more complex features (e.g., interactive data viewing, precise plotting queries, advanced RStudio API emulation).

🧪 Testing Performed

  • Validated new integration test suite.
  • Tested plotting via httpgd and standard viewers.
  • Confirmed rstudioapi emulation and global environment variable syncing.

Note: Ensure to check any new dependencies introduced in package.json and package-lock.json are properly installed before building.

@randy3k randy3k changed the title Modernize R Session IPC with WebSocket and JSON-RPC 2.0 (WIP_ Modernize R Session IPC with WebSocket and JSON-RPC 2.0 (WIP) Mar 14, 2026
@randy3k randy3k force-pushed the dev branch 6 times, most recently from a4e988b to f5f38f2 Compare March 15, 2026 03:03
@randy3k randy3k changed the title Modernize R Session IPC with WebSocket and JSON-RPC 2.0 (WIP) Next major release 3.0.0-rc.0 Mar 15, 2026
@randy3k randy3k force-pushed the dev branch 2 times, most recently from 4ea0953 to b13558e Compare March 16, 2026 04:25
@randy3k randy3k force-pushed the dev branch 3 times, most recently from 9cd3d26 to 979897b Compare March 23, 2026 23:02
randy3k added 3 commits March 24, 2026 13:13
@randy3k
feat(sess): migrate session watcher to WebSockets/JSON-RPC 2.0
4e1ca8b 
Introduce the 'sess' R package for WebSocket IPC, implement terminal orchestration, and modernize the session watcher architecture for improved reliability and performance.
@randy3k
test: implement comprehensive integration test suite and modernize CI
9afdf63 
Add end-to-end integration tests for the session watcher and terminal, refactor existing unit tests, and update GitHub Action workflows for improved CI reliability.
@randy3k
chore: final refinements and maintenance
65d8e13 
Apply session watcher stability fixes, swap R IPC client/server roles for reliability, perform final linting, and bump the version to 3.0.0-rc.0.
@randy3k
fix(rstudioapi): resolve emulation issues and viewer routing
1a247cc 
* Fix `rstudioapi::documentContext()` to return the complete document
  context, including `contents`, `path`, and `selection`.
* Fix `rstudioapi::documentPath()` by accessing the corrected
  document context structure.
* Refactor viewer dispatching to remove hardcoded `viewer` arguments
  from JSON-RPC payloads. `webview`, `dataview`, `browser`, and
  `page_viewer` now explicitly define their intent and dynamically
  resolve against the VS Code `session.viewers.viewColumn` settings.
* Ignore `*.d.ts` files in `.eslintignore` to fix linting errors.
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renkun-ken commented Mar 29, 2026

Thanks for the good work! I'm wondering how to make it work with self-managed R sessions, e.g. a radian console started in a tmux window?

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renkun-ken commented Mar 29, 2026

I'm also wondering if the dependencies of sess could be somehow reduced so that it is more self-contained and could work with more restrictive environments where more limits of package installation are imposed.

[sess] Connected to VS Code

> sessionInfo()
R version 4.5.1 (2025-06-13)
Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20
Running under: macOS Tahoe 26.4

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib 
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib;  LAPACK version 3.12.1

locale:
[1] C.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C.UTF-8/C/C.UTF-8/C.UTF-8

time zone: Asia/Hong_Kong
tzcode source: internal

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] websocket_1.4.4   compiler_4.5.1    R6_2.6.1          cli_3.6.5        
 [5] later_1.4.5       tools_4.5.1       Rcpp_1.1.1        httpgd_2.0.4     
 [9] unigd_0.1.3       jsonlite_2.0.0    sess_0.1.0        lifecycle_1.0.5  
[13] rlang_1.1.7       systemfonts_1.3.1

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randy3k commented Mar 30, 2026 •
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Thanks for the good work! I'm wondering how to make it work with self-managed R sessions, e.g. a radian console started in a tmux window?

If you run R: Connect to R Session, it will copy a websocket address. You can then paste it in R (with sess installed) inside sess_app`. E.g.,

sess::sess_app("ws://......")

(at the moment of writing, it may be more convenient to copy the whoe command with sess::sess_app(....).

Theorietically, we could replace websocket with base R socketConnect but it is not very efficient. I beleive most users will also install languageserver, I guess it is also possible to absorb the package into langugeserver which is kind of bloated already.

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renkun-ken commented Mar 31, 2026

Yes, that's true. languageserver has many dependencies already. One difference is that languageserver is not loaded in the user session while sess is. For me, less packages loaded in user session could be cleaner :)

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@randy3k @renkun-ken