1 min di lettura
CRAN
R's package archive — package metadata, function references and recent releases across roughly 25,000 packages.
The R package archive, answerable in conversation: what a package does, what a function takes, and what has changed lately.
What it is
Section titled “What it is”CRAN is the Comprehensive R Archive Network, the package repository behind the R language, with roughly 25,000 published packages. This integration reads it two ways — live for package metadata, and from a local index that a slow background crawl fills in for function documentation.
It reports its own coverage rather than implying completeness, which matters because the function index is genuinely partial.
Use it for
Section titled “Use it for”- “What does this R package do, and what does it depend on?”
- “What arguments does this function take?”
- “Which packages have a function for this?”
- “What has been released or archived recently?”
- “How much of the function documentation is actually indexed?”
| Function | Answers |
|---|---|
| Usage guide | Which lookups are live and which depend on the index — the assistant reads this first |
| Get package | A package’s version, licence, dependencies and publication date, live |
| Function reference | One function’s signature and arguments, or an overview for a package |
| Search functions | Functions matching a keyword, across whatever has been indexed so far |
| Recent changes | Recent releases and archivals |
| Coverage status | How much of the function documentation has been indexed — measured, not assumed |
Data and permissions
Section titled “Data and permissions”- Open and keyless. Nothing about your organisation passes through.
- Read-only.
- Mixed freshness by design. Package metadata is live; function search depends on a background crawl that is deliberately slow so as not to burden CRAN.
Getting started
Section titled “Getting started”Add the MCP server to an assistant and ask.
Limitations
Section titled “Limitations”- Function search is incomplete, and says so. Always read the coverage figure it returns — a function not found may simply not be indexed yet, which is different from not existing.
- Documentation, not execution. This connection reads about packages; it does not run R.
- CRAN only. Bioconductor, GitHub-only packages and other repositories are not covered.
- Archived is not deleted. A package may appear in recent changes as archived and still be installable from source, which the archive record does not spell out.