Can pkgdown autogenerate readme.md and index.html from readme.rmd?

I would like my README.Rmd to serve as the template for both the pkgdown homepage and the github README.md. Is there a way to get pkgdown to generate both files when I build the site, or do I have to remember to knit it separately?

pkgdown should pick up README.Rmd as the source for index.html, in the absence of anything "better", according to this set of choices:

Building your pkgdown site used to also render README.Rmd to README.md, in the top-level directory. But that is no longer true in dev right now.

So that remains your job.

2 Likes

Thanks @jennybryan. I suppose that makes some sense, since README.md isn't part of the site, but it would be nice as an option.

Yeah, I agree that README.Rmd --> README.md is a bit of an orphan right now. Neither pkgdown nor document() is looking after it. It feels like it should be wired up to something :thinking: