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Aaron Jacobs

@atheriel.bsky.social
243 followers 79 following 33 posts

Software engineer building products at @posit.co. Occasional open-source #rstats work. Obscure Linux/ZFS stuff on the side.

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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
This was a colossal amount of work but I could not be happier that #rstats has a serious OpenTelemetry story now.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
This release has some nice ergonomic improvements for #rstats users querying Snowflake or Databricks. I'm excited about the potential of the workload identity functionality in particular.
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Barret Schloerke @schloerke.com · 10/09/2025
{otel} + #rstats is becoming a crazy partnership. This project has driven me to use/write {promises} in ways that makes my 🧠 ache 😅. The reward is worth it! See you at #PositConf2025 where I'll talk about this in more detail
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
More #rstats + OpenTelemetry news: @schloerke.com finally got all of the async issues in {ellmer} and {shiny} sorted out and tracing now works! Here's what combining {shiny} + {ellmer} + {httr2} + {mirai} + {otel} looks like today. (All credit for the screenshots to @schloerke.com.)
A screenshot showing the Logfire tracing UI with traces from a Shiny app using ellmer, httr2, and mirai on the left and some attributes on the right.A Shiny chatbot with a conversation about the weather in Atlanta, GA. It clearly serves as the source of the traces in the first image.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
The internals of {ellmer} are like the final boss of modern #rstats package codebases: S7, httr2, promises, and coro *everywhere*. It really shows how to push the limit of what can be done with R.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
More #rstats OpenTelemetry tidbits: I've revived the PR that adds instrumentation to the {httr2} package. Here is what is looks like to run {httr2}'s own test suite while looked up to Logfire:
A screenshot showing the Logfire tracing UI with traces from an HTTP client on the left and some attributes on the right. The trace names and attributes indicate that they are emitted by the R package "httr2".
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
There's been a big push at Posit this summer to get high-quality OpenTelemetry support out to the #rstats community (a longstanding dream of mine). I think {mirai} is the first package release to showcase this work, and as per usual with @shikokuchuo.net, it was done in record time!
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
In the last few months I've worked a fair bit in Typescript building "VS Code" extensions for #Positron. It's my first time using that language or the extension APIs, and I have to say that the teams at Microsoft have done some incredible work on both.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Somehow, for the third time in my life, I'm wondering if I need to write a #linux NSS module to solve my problems...
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Simon P. Couch @simonpcouch.com · 29/08/2025
odbc 1.6.2 is now on #rstats CRAN! A good few QOL improvements, especially for Databricks and Snowflake users: github.com/r-dbi/odbc/r...
github.com
Release odbc 1.6.2 · r-dbi/odbc
Fix hang when parsing exceptionally long database errors (#916). Fix retrieving multiple result sets from parametrized queries in cases when some parameters yield empty results (#927). Databric...
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Posit @posit.co · 29/08/2025
Introducing Databot: an AI assistant for exploratory data analysis in #Python and #RStats! A research preview in Positron, Databot is a tireless pair programmer to help you explore data. Learn more about this tool and our philosophy behind it: 🤖 posit.co/blog/introdu... ⚠️ posit.co/blog/databot...
Collaborate > automate. Databot logo alongside screenshot of Positron.
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Posit @posit.co · 28/08/2025
Announcing the Posit Publisher VS Code extension! This new tool makes it easy for #RStats and #Python users to deploy data science content, like Shiny apps, Quarto docs, and Jupyter notebooks, from #VSCode and Positron directly to Posit Connect. Learn more and install open-vsx.org/extension/po...
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Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 25/07/2025
🐘 ellmer 🐘 makes it easy and fun to use LLMs from #rstats, and 0.3.0 is out now. Read about the new streamlined chat() function, improvements to tool specifications, and more at www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/07....
tidyverse.org
ellmer 0.3.0
The newest version of ellmer introduces a simpler `chat()` interface that can works with any provider, a bunch of improvements to tool calling, and a handful of smaller quality of life improvements.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
We're having a hard time figuring out the correct (minimal-permission) API scope for using Vertex AI from the #rstats {ellmer} package. If you have access to Vertex (we don't) and want to test, here is where to start: github.com/tidyverse/el... github.com/tidyverse/el... github.com/tidyverse/el...
github.com
Update API endpoint for Vertex AI, use working scope for auth by netique · Pull Request #598 · tidyverse/ellmer
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Posit @posit.co · 01/07/2025
Ever wonder how the #tidyverse came to be? 🤔 #TheTestSet's first episode features @hadley.nz on his accidental empire of #RStats packages, bear encounters, and more! Stream it at thetestset.co, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. #DataAnalytics #PodcastLaunch
Hadley Wickham in a white t-shirt and jeans sits on a light-colored couch across from Michael Chow, wearing a dark green shirt and pants, who is seated on an orange pouf. Between them is a white coffee table with books. In the background, there's a dark bar with shelves displaying numerous bottles, a wood-paneled wall, and a black, modern fireplace. Text overlay reads "Hadley Wickham CHIEF SCIENTIST, POSIT".
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Small #rstats improvement for folks interested in RAG with {ragnar} (and just in time for their conference): github.com/tidyverse/ra...
github.com
Add support for using embedding models from Databricks by atheriel · Pull Request #45 · tidyverse/ragnar
Databricks hosts a couple of dedicated text embedding models through their Foundation Models API. This commit introduces embed_databricks() to give ragnar users access to them. Note that this is a ...
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
For those following the #rstats {ellmer} package: I got the chat_databricks() and chat_snowflake() providers working with tool calling this past week. IMHO this means these providers are no longer toys: they can be used with RAG (via {ragnar}) and other complex tasks like @simonpcouch.com's {btw}.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Second pass: traces from a RAG in Langfuse constructed using both #rstats {ragnar} and {ellmer}. This shows a tool call out to a text embedding model as well as a general-purpose one, which is a bit more realistic (and interesting).
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Currently wiring up a simple #rstats ellmer chatbot to send traces to Langfuse. These LLM observability platforms have some pretty slick UI:
A screenshot showing a trace in Langfuse. Visible are chat completions and their underlying HTTP requests, a tool call span, and a root span called "invoke_agent".
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Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 03/06/2025
Want to easily use LLMs from R? ellmer 0.2.0 provides: • Batch & parallel processing • A universal parameter interface • Cost tracking • Support for Mistral, Hugging Face, & Portkey And much more! Read all about it at: www.tidyverse.org/blog/2025/05... #rstats
tidyverse.org
ellmer 0.2.0
ellmer 0.2.0 lands with a swag of upgrades: Garrick Aden‑Buie joins the team, we make a couple of breaking changes, and add serious scale with `parallel_chat()` and `batch_chat()`. A new `params()` ...
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
Thanks to some great work from @gaborcsardi.org my longstanding dream of bringing high-quality OpenTelemetry tooling to #rstats is starting to get off the ground.
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Charlie Gao @shikokuchuo.net · 14/04/2025
New in #rstats R4.5.0: `parallel::makeCluster(6, "MIRAI")` creates a parallel mirai cluster with 6 nodes. Yes that's right, mirai is now officially a base R cluster type! mirai.r-lib.org Result of work from the R Project Sprint in Warwick 2023 in collaboration with Luke Tierney (R Core).
mirai is now an 'enhances' package of the base parallel package
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Simon P. Couch @simonpcouch.com · 28/05/2025
Introducing acquaint, an R package that turns your R sessions into a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This allows MCP-enabled tools like Claude Desktop and Claude Code to run #rstats code _in your active R sessions_ to explore objects, read documentation, etc. posit-dev.github.io/acquaint/
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Does it still count as conference-driven development if you're not actually going to the conference?
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Both Snowflake and Databricks have made improvements to their LLM APIs in recent months (particularly around tool calling and structured outputs). I'm hoping to surface many of these to #rstats users in the next {ellmer} release.
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Jeremy Allen @jeremy-data.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Me and a lot of people from all over the world talk about just how dead R is; like so dead. www.linkedin.com/posts/jeremy...
linkedin.com
#rstats #thewideworldofr #datascience | Jeremy Allen | 132 comments
R is so dead that there are thousands of economists, actuaries, statisticians, bioinformaticists, epidemiologists, biologists, ecologists, geologists, geographers, psychologists, demographers, sociolo...
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Hadley Wickham @hadley.nz · 18/05/2025
✨Use llms from #rstats with ellmer ✨Version 0.2.0 is on CRAN now. No blog post yet because I'm about to go on vacation, but in the meantime you can check out the release notes: github.com/tidyverse/el....
github.com
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Simon P. Couch @simonpcouch.com · 04/03/2025
odbc 1.6.0 is now on #rstats CRAN! Includes a new helper for Redshift, a hex sticker (finally!), and many QOL improvements for Databricks, Snowflake, MSSQL, etc. Read more: odbc.r-dbi.org/news/index.h...
A hexagonal sticker with an all black background and "odbc" written in layered shades of blue.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
A long-awaited update of the #rstats {odbc} package is now on CRAN. It includes a cool new odbc::redshift() helper I wrote to make it easier to use IAM credentials, plus some #posit Connect goodies. (And thanks to @simonpcouch.com for managing the release!) cran.r-project.org/web/packages...
cran.r-project.org
NEWS
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Posit @posit.co · 26/02/2025
We are delighted to announce the release of ellmer, an R package for accessing the power of LLMs in R! ellmer supports a variety of model providers. Chat, tool call, stream API calls, extract structured data, and more! Learn about it here: posit.co/blog/announc... #RStats #AI #LLM
ellmer hex, consisting of a colorful cartoon elephant
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
I want to highlight that v0.1.1 of {ellmer} has been on CRAN for a few weeks now. This version includes a ton of improvements when using an LLM hosted on Azure, AWS, Databricks, or Snowflake from #rstats -- which is pretty common in enterprise settings. 🧵 ellmer.tidyverse.org/news/index.h...
ellmer.tidyverse.org
Changelog
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Kyle Walker @kylewalker.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
{ellmer} is the best #LLM interface in any language, in my opinion, and I'd encourage you to give the new PDF support a try. Learn more: ellmer.tidyverse.org/
ellmer.tidyverse.org
Chat with Large Language Models
Chat with large language models from a range of providers including Claude <https://claude.ai>, OpenAI <https://chatgpt.com>, and more. Supports streaming, asynchronous calls, tool calling, and structured data extraction.
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
I've been happily using Air on new and existing #rstats packages for a few weeks now, and wholeheartedly recommend it!
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Thanks to feedback from Tony Sokolov, @jameshwade.bsky.social, and @davzim.bsky.social, I've been able to improve support for Entra ID authentication in the #rstats {ellmer} package greatly this week. We now support Azure service principals and browser-based authentication for Azure OpenAI chatbots!
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Aaron Jacobs @atheriel.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Snowflake announced GA support for Claude 3.5 Sonnet through their Cortex product a few days ago, and I took a first pass at bringing this to #rstats users via {ellmer} today: github.com/tidyverse/el...
github.com
Add a new chat_snowflake() provider by atheriel · Pull Request #258 · tidyverse/ellmer
This commit adds chat_snowflake() for chatting with models hosted through Snowflake&#39;s Cortex LLM REST API: chat &lt;- chat_snowflake() chat$chat(&quot;Tell me a joke in the form of a SQL query....
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