Specifying an R environment by having a DESCRIPTION file

Jupyter+R:

RStudio:

Binder supports using R and RStudio, with libraries pinned to a specific snapshot on MRAN.

If you specify a runtime.txt file that is formatted like:

r-<YYYY>-<MM>-<DD>

where YYYY-MM-DD it will use the MRAN snapshot of that day for setting up the R runtime.

Without specifying a runtime.txt it will use a 2-day old snapshot of MRAN.

Both RStudio and IRKernel are installed by default, so you can use either the Jupyter notebook interface or the RStudio interface.