Posit Package Manager Is Now GA in the Posit Team Native App

Plus Posit Assistant in RStudio, a new cost-control hard stop, and desktop publishing to Connect.

Posit has upgraded the Posit Team native app on Snowflake to make Posit Package Manager, its curated, vulnerability-scanned package repository for R and Python, generally available alongside Workbench and Connect.

The upgrade also adds: Posit Assistant support in RStudio, a terminal CLI for Posit Assistant, a new hard-stop control for compute costs, and easier / secure publishing from desktop Positron or VS Code to Posit Connect (in Posit Team Native App) via Posit Publisher.

Package Manager: out of the box governance

Package Manager solves a problem every R and Python team eventually runs into: how do you give data scientists fast, reliable access to packages without losing control over what's installed or risking unvetted code in production. Running it inside the native app keeps everything inside Snowflake's security boundary, and once enabled, it automatically configures Workbench to use it as both the package index and extension gallery, with no extra setup required.

For administrators and end users alike, that translates into concrete benefits:

• Security by default. Every package is scanned against the OSV vulnerability database before it reaches your team.
• Reproducible environments. Date-based snapshots mean a project built today will still install the same dependencies a year from now.
• Speed. Pre-built Linux binaries install in seconds instead of compiling from source.
• AI-ready workflows. A built-in MCP server helps guide AI-assisted development against your curated repositories.

This release ships Package Manager 2026.05.0.  

Posit Assistant expands to RStudio — and now lives in your terminal

Posit Assistant, the unified AI agent for data science, was previously available in Positron. With this release, it comes to RStudio sessions too, giving R-focused teams the same in-IDE AI agent already available to Positron users. See the RStudio Posit Assistant guide to get started.

There's also a new way to reach it: Posit Assistant now ships as a terminal CLI in Workbench. Type pa (or positai) from any terminal session to work with the agent without leaving the command line. Full setup details are in the Posit Assistant documentation.

A real hard stop for compute costs

Administrators already had Posit’s idle-management and automatic suspension controls for managing compute spend. Now STOP_SERVICE accepts an optional allow_resume argument, giving you a genuine hard stop: STOP_SERVICE('workbench', FALSE) suspends a service and keeps it down even if a user logs in and tries to use it. That's useful for scheduled overnight or weekend shutdowns where users want to guarantee savings.

Publish to Connect from your desktop 

Teams that build locally now have a direct path to production. You can publish content to your Snowflake-hosted Connect instance straight from desktop Positron or VS Code using Posit Publisher, bringing push-button publishing to local development alongside the existing rsconnect and rsconnect-python command-line workflows.

Publisher reads your Snowflake connection from your connections.toml file and supports two authentication paths depending on what fits your setup: keypair (SNOWFLAKE_JWT) for a fully configured, non-interactive setup, or browser-based (externalbrowser) sign-in when you want something lower-friction. From there, you authenticate to Connect with an API key or token and deploy just as you would to any other Connect server — no extra glue code required. 

This release also brings Connect up to 2026.06.0 and Workbench to 2026.06.0, alongside Package Manager 2026.05.0. Full details on everything included are in the Posit Team Native App release notes.

Get started

Existing customers can enable Package Manager from within the native app once licensed. New to Posit Team? Start a 30-day trial from the Snowflake Marketplace listing.  

More from the Posit + Snowflake partnership

• Start a 30-day trial from the Snowflake Marketplace listing
• Watch: AI-Powered R & Python Data Science You Can Actually Trust | Snowflake + Posit Demo
• Learn more about the Posit and Snowflake partnership
• Posit wins two Snowflake Partner Awards and launches Posit Assistant at Snowflake Summit 2026
• Posit Connect goes GA in the Snowflake Native App
• Posit Team Snowflake update: Posit Assistant and idle timeouts
• How Posit and Snowflake built an enterprise data science engine: from native integration to 173% pipeline growth

FAQ

What is Posit Package Manager? A curated repository service for R, Python, and IDE extensions that scans every package against the OSV vulnerability database and offers date-based snapshots for reproducible environments.

What is a "hard stop" in Posit Workbench on Snowflake? Running STOP_SERVICE('workbench', FALSE) suspends a service and blocks Snowflake from auto-resuming it on user login — useful for guaranteeing a scheduled shutdown stays off.

Can I publish to Posit Connect without a Snowflake session? Yes. Posit Publisher lets you deploy to a Snowflake-hosted Connect instance directly from desktop Positron or VS Code, authenticating via keypair or browser-based Snowflake login.

What is the Posit Team Native App for Snowflake? The Posit Team Native App is a governed, code-first data science platform that runs natively inside the Snowflake AI Data Cloud via Snowpark Container Services. It includes Posit Workbench for development, Posit Connect for deployment, and Posit Package Manager for open-source package governance, all without data leaving Snowflake's security boundary.

About Posit

Posit, PBC (formerly RStudio) creates software that helps individuals, teams, and organizations make better decisions with data. We believe the best analyses are correct, transparent, and reproducible, and that humans and AI work best together. Posit’s products, including Workbench, Connect, and Package Manager, power data science teams at thousands of organizations worldwide, from startups to the Fortune 500. Learn more at posit.co.

About Snowflake

Snowflake is the platform for the AI era, making it easy for enterprises to innovate faster and get more value from data. More than 13,300 customers around the globe, including hundreds of the world’s largest companies, use Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud to build, use and share data, applications and AI. With Snowflake, data and AI are transformative for everyone. Learn more at snowflake.com (NYSE: SNOW).