[Feature Request]: devtools::install_dev_deps() into pak::local_install_dev_deps()

[pawelru]

Feature description

For TLGCatalog, the whole workflow took 32 mins out of which 15 min is consumed on package installation. Let's try to optimize it. pak is supposed to be much faster than remotes used in devtools.

manual: https://pak.r-lib.org/reference/local_install_dev_deps.html

As an extra: pak supports caching which could also speed up the overall installation (something not available currently).

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct.

Contribution Guidelines

• I agree to follow this project's Contribution Guidelines.

[walkowif]

Currently in TLG Catalog, the dependencies are installed:

• Build & Deploy TLGC (dev) - by staged.dependencies
• Build & Deploy TLGC (stable) - by devtools::install_dev_deps
• R CMD Check (development) - by staged.dependencies via r.pkg.template build-check-install workflow
• R CMD Check (stable) - by devtools::install_dev_deps via r.pkg.template build-check-install workflow

It is possible to swap devtools::install_dev_deps with pak::local_install_dev_deps as shown in insightsengineering/tlg-catalog#251 and #233.

However, for pak to work, it is necessary to provide information about repositories containing packages not available on CRAN, otherwise pak will fail when it encounters a missing dependency.

One way to do it would be to specify https://insightsengineering.r-universe.dev as package source along CRAN. I don't really remember what was the final decision, but it appears that right now https://insightsengineering.r-universe.dev contains released versions of insightsengineering packages, which would make it suitable for this purpose.