[r-packages] GitHub credentials not available during installation

[dpprdan]

When installing a package from GitHub with r-packages in a devcontainer, the GitHub credentials, stored in the Git Credential Manager for Windows with {gitcreds}, are not available.

With the following devcontainer.json

// For format details, see https://aka.ms/devcontainer.json. For config options, see the
// README at: https://github.com/rocker-org/devcontainer-templates/tree/main/src/r-ver
{
	"name": "${localWorkspaceFolderBasename}",
	// Or use a Dockerfile or Docker Compose file. More info: https://containers.dev/guide/dockerfile
	"image": "ghcr.io/rocker-org/devcontainer/r-ver:4.3",

	// Features to add to the dev container. More info: https://containers.dev/features.
	"features": {
		"ghcr.io/rocker-org/devcontainer-features/r-packages:1": {
			"installSystemRequirements": true,
			"packages": "github::r-lib/crayon"
		}
	}
}

I see the following line in the devcontainer build log scrolling by:

=> => # ! Using bundled GitHub PAT. Please add your own PAT using `gitcreds::gitcreds_set()`.

As a consequence it is not possible to install packages from private repos on GitHub.

I don't know whether this can be fixed, i.e. whether the credentials can be made available during the container build, or whether a line about this in the documentation has to suffice.

A workaround is to install GitHub packages (from private repos) in the postCreateCommand stage:

"postCreateCommand": "R -q -e 'pak::pak(\"r-lib/crayon\")'"

Session

VS Code 1.84.2 Docker Desktop 4.25.1 (128006) Windows 11 (10.0.22631)

[eitsupi]

Could you look at this? https://github.com/devcontainers/spec/blob/86ac194cd58c652be118345b8bbf137d67e818a6/docs/specs/secrets-support.md

[dpprdan]

I gather from this that the necessary functionality, i.e. passing secrets during the build process, is specified. Furthermore, passing in secrets from the credential manager for my use case outlined above should be possible in the future™️, i.e. once accessing the Windows Credential Manager is implemented in, I believe, https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/).

There isn't really anything we can do here now, is there? Except maybe add a line to the documentation?

(It's possible that SSH based authentication might work for this https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/ 🤷🏻‍♂️)