Skip to content

Requesting new libraries

Additional R, Stata, or Python packages in OpenSAFELY must be added by the OpenSAFELY development team. Installing packages via commands that pull the package from the internet (e.g install.packages() in R, ssc install in Stata or pip install in Python) won't work because internet access is restricted in the server.

Requesting additional packages🔗

If the package you need is not available, you can request it as follows:

  • Make a new issue in the appropriate tracker (see below).
  • Explain the rationale
  • Get another member of the support group to chip in on the issue (e.g. do they agree; do they think a different package might do the same thing better)
  • Assign to Simon when discussion finished.

Requesting additional R packages🔗

You can view all installed packages and their versions for the OpenSAFELY R image and open an issue.

Requesting additional Stata packages🔗

You can open an issue.

Requesting additional Python packages🔗

You can view all installed packages and their versions for the OpenSAFELY Python image and open an issue.

Manual installation🔗

Whilst the long-term solution in most cases should be to install additional packages properly, an occassion short-term fix is to add the required package (or individual functions) into your project repo directly and load/import them manually. This will only be feasible if the functions do not have a complex hierarchy of dependencies. For instance, in many cases, Stata packages can be added by copying the relevant ado files into the project repo.

Either way, you should make an Issue for the package so that other users are aware of the package's history in OpenSAFELY.