I’m excited to share side::kick(), an experimental coding agent for RStudio users, built entirely in R. It can interact with your files, talk to your active R session, and run code.
side::kick() was my best attempt at replicating a Claude Code-like experience with btw, ellmer, and shinychat. Beyond what’s in those packages, it has a good few bells and whistles:
- Use any LLM supported by ellmer–Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, and even local models are fair game.
- See your active R session to explore your computational environment.
- Use tools to read and write files, run shell commands, and read R documentation.
- Create and execute plans, allowing it to take on longer-horizon tasks.
- Persist state across R sessions so that you can close RStudio and come back to a chat later.
- Respond to interrupts so that you can stop execution and reroute the agent.
- Read skills, markdown files that describe how to carry out a given task in the way you need it to.
Getting started
To get started, install with:
pak::pak("simonpcouch/side")Then, run side::kick(). You might place side::kick() in your .Rprofile (perhaps with usethis::edit_r_profile()) to launch side::kick() every time you start R.
side::kick() is intended for use with RStudio’s Sidebar, a full-height pane that’s currently only available in RStudio Dailies. Install RStudio, then search for “Sidebar” in the command palette.
The introductory vignette goes into much more depth on configuring and using the tool!