Chapter 9 Deploying R Bookdown on Posit Connect Cloud

You’ve done the analysis. You’ve got clean data, solid results, and a collection of scripts that do exactly what you need. Now what? For many GIS projects, the answer is: make it accessible to others. This chapter covers deploying an R Bookdown document — like a technical report, methodology guide, or data documentation — to Posit Connect Cloud so anyone with the link can read it.

If this sounds like a big jump from writing R scripts, don’t worry. Claude Code handles most of the configuration, and Posit Connect Cloud takes care of the hosting.

9.1 What is Bookdown?

  • Bookdown is an R package that turns a collection of R Markdown files into a structured, navigable book — as HTML, PDF, or both.
  • You’re reading one right now. This guide is built with Bookdown.
  • It’s ideal for GIS documentation — technical reports, methodology documents, data dictionaries, and training materials that combine text, code, and figures.
  • Each chapter is a separate .Rmd file, which keeps things manageable and makes collaboration easier.

9.2 What is Posit Connect Cloud?

  • Posit Connect Cloud (formerly RStudio Connect Cloud) is a hosting platform for R and Python content — Shiny apps, Bookdown documents, Quarto sites, and more.
  • Free tier available. You can publish up to 5 pieces of content for free, which is plenty for most individual projects.
  • No server management. You publish from your machine; Posit handles the hosting, rendering, and access control.
  • Shareable via URL. Once published, anyone with the link can access your document — useful for sharing results with stakeholders who don’t use R.

9.3 Setting Up a Bookdown Project with Claude

Ask Claude to scaffold the project structure for you:

“Create a Bookdown project structure for a technical report on our green space accessibility analysis. Include an index file, three content chapters, a references file, and the necessary configuration files.”

Claude will generate:

  • index.Rmd — the title page and preface
  • 01-data.Rmd, 02-methods.Rmd, 03-results.Rmd — your content chapters
  • _bookdown.yml — configuration for chapter ordering and output
  • _output.yml — output format settings
  • style.css — optional custom styling

9.4 Building Locally

Before deploying, build the book on your machine to check everything renders correctly:

“Build the bookdown site and open it in the browser.”

Claude will run:

bookdown::render_book("index.Rmd", "bookdown::gitbook")

Check the output in your browser. Look for:

  • Do all chapters appear in the table of contents?
  • Do figures and maps render correctly?
  • Are code chunks displaying as intended (or hidden, if that’s what you want)?
  • Do cross-references and links work?

9.5 Deploying to Posit Connect Cloud

  1. Create a Posit Connect Cloud account at connect.posit.cloud if you don’t have one.

  2. Install the rsconnect package if needed:

install.packages("rsconnect")

  1. Configure your account — Posit Connect Cloud will give you an API key. Ask Claude: > “Help me configure rsconnect to publish to Posit Connect Cloud.”

  2. Publish: > “Deploy this bookdown project to Posit Connect Cloud.”

Claude will guide you through the rsconnect::deployDoc() or rsconnect::deploySite() process, handling the configuration details.

9.6 Updating Your Deployed Document

One of the best things about this workflow: updating is trivial.

  • Make your changes locally (ideally on a branch, as per Chapter 4).
  • Rebuild the book.
  • Re-deploy with the same command — it updates the existing publication rather than creating a new one.
  • Ask Claude: “Rebuild the bookdown site and redeploy to Posit Connect Cloud.”

Your URL stays the same, so anyone who has the link will see the latest version.