Shiny Deployment Checklist: Production-Ready Reference Guide

Shiny Deployment Checklist

Production-ready deployment steps and troubleshooting guide

1 Pre-Deployment Preparation

# Dependency management with renv
renv::init()
renv::snapshot()

# Test application locally
shiny::runApp()

# Check for common issues
rsconnect::lint(".")

# Optimize data files
saveRDS(data, "data/optimized.rds", compress = TRUE)

# Create .dockerignore / deployment exclusions
# .git, .Rproj.user, *.log, temp files

Critical: Always test locally first and lock package versions with renv

2 Platform Selection & Setup

# shinyapps.io deployment
rsconnect::deployApp(
  appName = "my-production-app",
  appTitle = "Production Dashboard",
  forceUpdate = TRUE,
  lint = TRUE
)

# Docker container build
docker build -t my-shiny-app:latest .
docker run -p 3838:3838 my-shiny-app:latest

# ShinyProxy application.yml entry
specs:
  - id: production-app
    display-name: "Production Dashboard"
    container-image: my-registry/app:latest
    container-memory: "4GB"
    container-cpu-limit: 2

Platform Choice

shinyapps.io: Quick, managed hosting
Docker: Full control, any infrastructure
ShinyProxy: Enterprise multi-tenant

3 Security Configuration

# Environment variables (never hardcode secrets)
db_password <- Sys.getenv("DATABASE_PASSWORD")
api_key <- Sys.getenv("API_KEY")

# HTTPS enforcement (shinyapps.io automatic)
# Docker with reverse proxy
proxy:
  https-redirect: true
  ssl-certificate: /path/to/cert.pem

# Authentication (ShinyProxy LDAP example)
authentication: ldap
ldap:
  url: ldap://company.com:389
  user-dn-pattern: uid={0},ou=users,dc=company,dc=com
  group-search-base: ou=groups,dc=company,dc=com

Security Rule: Use environment variables for all secrets and credentials

4 Performance Optimization

# Memory optimization
options(shiny.maxRequestSize = 50 * 1024^2)  # 50MB

# Reactive caching
processed_data <- reactive({
  # Cache expensive operations
  expensive_calculation(input$parameter)
})

# Docker resource limits
container-memory: "4GB"
container-cpu-limit: 2
container-env:
  R_MAX_VSIZE: "3GB"
  
# Progress indicators for long operations
withProgress(message = 'Loading...', {
  incProgress(0.5, detail = "Processing data")
  # Your code here
})

Performance Tips

Pre-process data → Use RDS format → Cache reactive expressions → Set memory limits

5 Monitoring & Health Checks

# Application health endpoint
observe({
  cat("Health check:", Sys.time(), "\n")
})

# Docker health check
HEALTHCHECK --interval=30s --timeout=3s --retries=3 \
  CMD curl -f http://localhost:3838/ || exit 1

# ShinyProxy monitoring
usage-stats-url: http://influxdb:8086/write?db=shinyproxy_stats

# Log rotation configuration
logging:
  file:
    max-size: 10MB
    max-history: 30
    
# Monitor resource usage
system("docker stats --no-stream")

Monitor: Response times, memory usage, error rates, and user sessions

6 Troubleshooting Guide

# Check deployment logs
rsconnect::showLogs()  # shinyapps.io
docker logs container-name     # Docker
journalctl -u shinyproxy      # ShinyProxy

# Test container locally
docker run --rm -p 3838:3838 my-app:latest

# Package dependency check
renv::status()
renv::restore()

# Memory debugging
gc()  # Force garbage collection
pryr::mem_used()  # Check memory usage

# Network connectivity test
curl -I https://your-app.shinyapps.io/

Common Issues

Package conflicts → Memory limits → Network timeouts → Authentication failures

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