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stamp

Lightweight versioned artifact store for R with sidecar metadata, pruning policies, and Hive-style partitions.

Installation

You can install the development version of stamp from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("randrescastaneda/stamp")

Quickstart 

library(stamp)
root <- "demo_stamp"
st_init(root)
#> ✔ stamp initialized
#>   alias: default
#>   root: E:/PovcalNet/01.personal/wb535623/PIP/stamp/demo_stamp
#>   state: E:/PovcalNet/01.personal/wb535623/PIP/stamp/demo_stamp/.stamp

p <- "demo.qs2"
x <- data.frame(id = 1:3, val = letters[1:3])

# Save with primary key (code parameter tracks provenance - see vignettes)
st_save(x, p, pk = "id")
#> ✔ Saved [qs2] →
#>   'e:/povcalnet/01.personal/wb535623/pip/stamp/demo_stamp/demo.qs2' @ version
#>   e1575878e6d298ea
y <- st_load(p)
#> ✔ Loaded [qs2] ←
#>   'e:/povcalnet/01.personal/wb535623/pip/stamp/demo_stamp/demo.qs2'
vrs <- st_versions(p)
head(vrs)
#>          version_id      artifact_id     content_hash code_hash size_bytes
#>              <char>           <char>           <char>    <char>      <num>
#> 1: e1575878e6d298ea c124606df64bb597 cdbe771e53841cf7      <NA>        296
#>                     created_at sidecar_format
#>                         <char>         <char>
#> 1: 2026-03-02T20:26:58.905735Z           json

# Retention
st_opts(retain_versions = 2)
#> ✔ stamp options updated
#>   retain_versions = "2"
st_save(transform(x, val = toupper(val)), p)
#> ✔ Retention policy matched zero versions; nothing to prune.
#> ✔ Saved [qs2] →
#>   'e:/povcalnet/01.personal/wb535623/pip/stamp/demo_stamp/demo.qs2' @ version
#>   3021cb6f8ea6cb18
vrs <- st_versions(p)
head(vrs)
#>          version_id      artifact_id     content_hash code_hash size_bytes
#>              <char>           <char>           <char>    <char>      <num>
#> 1: 3021cb6f8ea6cb18 c124606df64bb597 d2b54b7e265bb11f      <NA>        263
#> 2: e1575878e6d298ea c124606df64bb597 cdbe771e53841cf7      <NA>        296
#>                     created_at sidecar_format
#>                         <char>         <char>
#> 1: 2026-03-02T20:26:59.062988Z           json
#> 2: 2026-03-02T20:26:58.905735Z           json

Managing Multiple Stamp Folders with Aliases

See the vignette “Using Aliases with stamp” for a comprehensive guide:

File Formats

stamp supports multiple serialization formats. The two binary formats have distinct implementations:

Extension Format Package Required Notes
.qs2 qs2 qs2 New qs2 binary format (recommended for new projects)
.qs qs {qs} Legacy qs binary format (deprecated; use .qs2 instead)
.rds rds (base R) R serialized format
.csv csv data.table Comma-separated values
.fst fst fst Fast columnar format
.json json jsonlite JSON format

Important: .qs and .qs2 are different formats and require their respective packages. There is no automatic fallback between them. If you attempt to save/load a .qs2 file without qs2 installed, stamp will abort with a clear error message.

Migration Note: Existing .qs files can still be loaded if {qs} is installed. To migrate to .qs2, load with st_load() and re-save with format = "qs2". The .qs2 format offers better performance and is actively maintained.

Installing Format Packages 

# For qs2 format support
install.packages("qs2")

# For fst format support
install.packages("fst")

Format Selection

stamp infers format from file extension by default:

# Uses qs2 format (requires {qs2})
st_save(data, "output.qs2")

# Uses RDS (base R, always available)
st_save(data, "output.rds")

You can also specify format explicitly:

st_save(data, "output", format = "qs2")

Core Functions

The functions below are organized by workflow. New users should start with Initialization, Save & Load, and Versioning sections. Advanced features like partitions, lineage tracking, and aliases are covered in the vignettes.

Initialization & Configuration

  • st_init(root) - Initialize stamp in a directory, creating the .stamp/ state folder
  • st_opts() - Get or set package options (versioning mode, retention policies, metadata format)
  • st_opts_reset() - Reset all options to defaults

Save & Load

  • st_save(x, path, ...) - Save an artifact with automatic versioning, metadata, and lineage tracking
    • Optional: pk (primary key), parents (lineage), code (provenance), domain (category), alias (target directory)
  • st_load(path, ...) - Load the latest version of an artifact
    • Optional: verify = TRUE (check content hash), alias (source directory)
  • st_load_version(path, version_id) - Load a specific historical version by ID

Versioning & History

  • st_versions(path) - List all versions of an artifact with metadata (timestamp, size, hashes)
  • st_latest(path) - Get the version ID of the most recent version
  • st_changed(x, path) - Check if an object differs from the saved version
  • st_changed_reason(x, path) - Explain why content/code changed
  • st_should_save(x, path) - Determine whether saving would create a new version

Lineage & Dependencies

  • st_lineage(path, depth = 1) - Show parent artifacts (inputs) for a given artifact
  • st_children(path, depth = 1) - Show child artifacts (outputs) that depend on this artifact
  • st_is_stale(path) - Check if an artifact needs rebuilding because parents changed

Metadata & Inspection

  • st_info(path) - Get comprehensive artifact information (sidecar, catalog, snapshot location, parents)
  • st_read_sidecar(path) - Read sidecar metadata (hashes, timestamps, primary keys, domain, parents)
  • st_hash_obj(x) - Compute stable hash for any R object
  • st_hash_code(code) - Compute hash of code/function
  • st_hash_file(path) - Compute SHA-256 hash of file on disk

Primary Keys

  • st_add_pk(path, keys) - Add or update primary key definition for an artifact
  • st_get_pk(x_or_meta) - Retrieve primary key columns from metadata
  • st_inspect_pk(path) - Validate primary key uniqueness and coverage

Partitioned and Pruning Data (under development)

  • st_save_part(x, base, key, ...) - Save a single partition with Hive-style directories
  • st_auto_partition(x, base, partition_cols, ...) - Automatically split and save dataset by partition columns
  • st_load_parts(base, filter = NULL, as = "rbind") - Load and combine partitions matching a filter
  • st_list_parts(base, filter = NULL) - List available partitions without loading
  • st_part_path(base, key) - Construct path for a partition given its key
  • st_prune_versions(path, policy) - Remove old versions based on retention policy

Aliases (Multi-Directory Support)

  • st_alias_list() - List all registered aliases
  • st_alias_get(name = NULL) - Get configuration for an alias

Builders & Rebuilds ⚠️ Experimental

Note: The builder system is under active development. Safe for prototyping, but consider pinning your stamp version in production code until the API stabilizes (expected in v1.0).

  • st_register_builder(path, builder_fn) - Register a function to rebuild an artifact from its parents
  • st_clear_builders(paths = NULL) - Clear registered builders
  • st_plan_rebuild(targets, ...) - Compute rebuild plan (which targets are stale and why)
  • st_rebuild(plan) - Execute a rebuild plan, calling builders and saving results

Filtering Helpers ⚠️ Experimental

Note: Advanced filtering utilities are under development.

  • st_filter(df, filters = list(), strict = TRUE) - Apply named list filters to data frames (used internally for partition queries)

Learn More

For detailed guides and workflows, see the package vignettes: