* pak is now more tolerant with extraneous whitespace in `PACKAGES*` metadata files (https://github.com/r-lib/pak/issues/785). * pak now builds again on FreeBSD (#790). * Installing dependencies of a package file with `deps::<filename>` works again (#784). * pak now always uses the correct working directory in the subprocess; this was a common source of errors. * New (nightly) binary builds for aarch64 Windows. * We do not build binary builds for the release candidate of pak any more, only for stable and devel pak. `rc` is an alias to `stable` now.

No changes.

* `pkg_deps()` now accepts a vector of package names. * The metadata cache now does not use source URLs for packages in `Archive` on Posit Package Manager repositories. This URLs may serve a different package, even a source package when the main URL for the same package serves a binary package. The alternative URLs are not needed on PPM, anyway, because PPM is in a consistent state w.r.t. metadata and package files (#623). * pak now supports `gitlab::` package sources better, by adding explicit syntax to specify subdirectories (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/issues/353, @dgkf). * `gitlab::` and `git::` package sources now support git submodules if the `git-submodules` configuration option is set to `TRUE`. See `?"pak-config"` (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/issues/354). * The new `?ignore-unavailable` parameter makes it easy to ignore soft dependencies that are unavailable (#606). * pak now automatically ignores soft dependencies that have an incompatible OS type (`OS_type` entry in `DESCRIPTION`) when installing packages. * `repo_add()` and the `ppm_*()` functions, e.g. `ppm_snapshots()`, now work again after the PPM API changes (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgcache/issues/110, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgcache/issues/115).

* pak now supports using parameters for all packages with the `*=?<param>` form. E.g. `*=?source` installs all packages from source. * pak now supports R 4.4.0 again, and also Rtools44.

* pak can now handle the case when `Config/Needs/*` dependencies are requested for package from a repository. * pak uses safer `*printf()` format strings now.

* pak now correctly handles the latest GitHub release with the `@*release` notation (@pawelru, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/321) * pak now correctly handles having multiple instances of the same package in the metadata, with different R version requirements (#534, #538, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/331). * `git::` package references work better now for Azure DevOps (@jameslairdsmith, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/333, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/342). * pak now does a better job at accepting installed packages, and avoids reinstalling more packages than needed when using a lock file (https://github.com/r-lib/actions/issues/759, https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/338).

* pak now requires R >= 3.5.0. * Many improvements in system requirements support: - New functions: - `pkg_sysreqs()`: calculate system requirements of packages. - `sysreqs_db_list()`, `sysreqs_db_match()`, `sysreqs_db_update()`: query the system requirements database. - `sysreqs_list_system_packages()`, `sysreqs_check_installed()`, `sysreqs_fix_installed()`: query and install missing system packages. - `sysreqs_platforms()`: list supported platforms. - The installation proposal, printed before installation, now includes required and missing system packages, on supported platforms. - New `sysreqs_platform` configuration option to override the auto-detected platform. - Faster, asynchronous system requirements lookup. - pak now does not reinstall system requirements by default, if they are already installed. (You can force a reinstall/upgrade with the `sysreqs_update` configuration option.) * New `gitlab::` package source to install packages from GitLab (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/pull/315). * pak now correctly parses multiple `git::` packages at once (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/issues/318). * `git::` package sources now support version 1 of the git protocol. E.g. the Bioconductor git repositories now work: `git::https://git.bioconductor.org/packages/limma` (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/issues/314). * The `platforms` config parameter now works correctly with `deps::` package sources (#522). * New `include_linkingto` config parameter to always include `LinkingTo` packages in the solution, even for binaries (https://github.com/r-lib/pkgdepends/issues/485). * `pkg_name_check()` now does not include Acromine results, because the web site was unstable. * In `repo_add()` and `repo_resolve()` the `MRAN@` prefix is now deprecated and resolves to PPM, because MRAN will be retired soon. See more at <https://posit.co/blog/migrating-from-mran-to-posit-package-manager/>. * The metadata cache now has `SystemRequirements` information for Bioconductor packages.

* No user visible changes.