Shiny ShareBridge

Portable Shiny app deployment for restricted Windows environments

Shiny ShareBridge

Package, inspect, and distribute Shiny apps to Windows users who have no admin rights, no R installation, and no Shiny Server — just a SharePoint sync.

Get Started View on GitHub


What is Shiny ShareBridge?

Shiny ShareBridge is a local deployment framework for packaging Shiny apps into a single self-contained folder that end users can run by double-clicking a file. It is designed for teams that work inside restricted Windows environments where:

  • Users do not have admin rights
  • Installing R or RStudio on every machine is impractical
  • Shiny Server or Posit Connect is not available
  • Distribution happens through SharePoint or OneDrive

Shiny ShareBridge handles everything: bundling your app code, detecting and installing all package dependencies, copying a stripped portable R, and generating a clean launcher that opens the app in a friendly browser URL like http://sharebridge-myapp.localhost:3670.

The Publisher UI can also run as a hosted inspector on Posit Connect Cloud or Hugging Face Spaces, where users upload a local app folder, review dependency and preflight checks, and download a generated zip.

Core workflow

Publisher Opens Publisher UI
→
Build Packages app + R + deps
→
SharePoint Copies output folder
→
Sync User syncs locally
→
Launch Double-click LaunchApp

Features

📦

Zero admin rights required

Bundles R and all packages inside the deployment folder. Users need nothing pre-installed.

🖥️

Visual Publisher UI

A Shiny-based publisher interface with live build progress, package detection, saved profiles, readiness scoring, preflight checks, and diagnostics.

🔍

Automatic dependency detection

Scans your app code for library(), require(), and pkg:: calls. Falls back to regex if renv is not available.

📡

SharePoint & OneDrive distribution

Place the output folder in SharePoint. Users sync it and double-click LaunchApp.hta — nothing else to do.

🌐

Friendly local URLs

Apps open at a human-readable address like sharebridge-myapp.localhost:3670 instead of a raw port number.

📴

Offline repo support

Optionally build a local CRAN mirror inside the deployment so packages install without internet access.

🔬

Health check & test launch

After every build, Shiny ShareBridge checks that all required files and packages are present, then lets you test-launch with one click.

💾

Build profiles

Save your publisher settings as named profiles. Reload them in one click for repeatable builds across versions.

i

Hosted inspector mode

Run the Publisher UI on Posit Connect Cloud or Hugging Face Spaces to upload an app folder, inspect dependencies, run preflight checks, download review reports, and download a generated zip.

*

Recipes and examples

Apply common build recipes or load sample apps to test ShareBridge behavior before publishing your own project.

Requirements

Side Requirement
Publisher machine Windows, R ≥ 4.0, packages: shiny, processx, jsonlite
End user machine Windows, SharePoint/OneDrive sync (no R, no admin rights needed when portable R is bundled)

Quick install

Shiny ShareBridge is not a CRAN package — it is a framework folder. To get started:

  1. Clone or download the repository
  2. Open PublishApp.hta to launch the Publisher UI
  3. Point it at your Shiny app and click Build deployment

See the Getting Started guide for the full walkthrough.

For hosted deployment, see Cloud Publishing for the Posit Connect Cloud and Hugging Face Spaces workflows.