ci(build): Add automated dry run build when submitting a PR

[tonywu1999]

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Chores
  • Added continuous integration workflow for automated testing on pull requests to improve code quality and maintainability.

_{✏️ Tip: You can customize this high-level summary in your review settings.}

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

A new GitHub Actions workflow file is added to configure continuous integration for pull requests targeting the devel branch. The workflow executes R environment setup, dependency installation, and Bioconductor build verification steps on ubuntu-latest.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
CI/CD Workflow Configuration \.github/workflows/dry-run-build\.yml	New workflow file defining automated dry-run builds for PRs. Triggered on pull requests to devel branch. Configures job with R and Bioc devel setup, dependency installation, and combined build/install/check action.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~8 minutes

• Verify workflow trigger conditions and branch targeting are correct
• Confirm R and Bioconductor version specifications align with project requirements
• Check action versions and step ordering for standard practices

Poem

🐰 A workflow springs to life, so neat,
With R and Bioc, quite the treat!
On every PR, it runs with care,
Building and checking with flair to spare!
Dry runs ensure the code's first-rate! ✨

Pre-merge checks and finishing touches

✅ Passed checks (3 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The pull request title 'ci(build): Add automated dry run build when submitting a PR' clearly and specifically describes the main change: adding a CI workflow for automated dry run builds on pull requests.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.

✨ Finishing touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Post copyable unit tests in a comment
• Commit unit tests in branch ci-dry-run

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 0

🧹 Nitpick comments (2)

.github/workflows/dry-run-build.yml (2)

2-4: Consider adding explicit permissions and a job timeout.

Best practice for GitHub Actions is to declare required permissions explicitly and set a timeout to prevent hanging builds, especially for long-running build/check operations.

Apply this diff to add a permissions block and timeout:

 name: Dry runs for PRs
+permissions:
+  contents: read
 on: 
   pull_request:
     branches: [devel]
 jobs:
   build:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    timeout-minutes: 60
     steps:

Adjust the timeout-minutes value based on your expected build duration.

---

8-18: Consider adding dependency caching for performance.

Caching R packages and Bioconductor dependencies can significantly improve CI runtime, especially if the workflow runs frequently.

Apply this diff to add caching before dependency installation:

     steps:
       - name: Checkout repository
         uses: actions/checkout@v4
+      - name: Cache R packages
+        uses: actions/cache@v4
+        with:
+          path: ${{ env.R_LIBS_USER }}
+          key: ${{ runner.os }}-r-${{ hashFiles('DESCRIPTION') }}
+          restore-keys: ${{ runner.os }}-r-
       - name: Setup R and Bioconductor
         uses: grimbough/bioc-actions/setup-bioc@v1

📜 Review details

Configuration used: CodeRabbit UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f0ef2f7 and c2567d9.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• .github/workflows/dry-run-build.yml (1 hunks)

🔇 Additional comments (2)

.github/workflows/dry-run-build.yml (2)

1-18: Workflow structure is sound.

The workflow follows standard GitHub Actions patterns for Bioconductor CI checks. The steps are logically sequenced and use appropriate, version-pinned actions for reproducibility.

---

11-14: Action versions are current and actively maintained.

All actions in the workflow are actively developed and their versions are appropriate:

• actions/checkout@v4 is the current GitHub official action
• grimbough/bioc-actions/setup-bioc@v1 and build-install-check@v1 are maintained by the Bioconductor team (latest repository update: Nov 13, 2025); v1 is the current version for these actions
• r-lib/actions/setup-r-dependencies@v2 is the recommended version (latest v2.11.4 released Oct 8, 2025)

Binding to major version tags (v1, v2, v4) is GitHub Actions best practice and ensures your workflows automatically receive bug fixes and security patches within the specified major version. No deprecation or maintenance concerns apply here.