# Auto-linking

## Within a package

pkgdown will automatically link to documentation and articles wherever it’s possible to do unambiguously. This includes:

- Bare function calls, like `build_site()`.
- Calls to `?`, like `?build_site` or `package?pkgdown`.
- Calls to `help()`, like `help("pkgdown")`.
- Calls to `vignette()`, like `vignette("pkgdown")`.

## Across packages

Linking to documentation in another package is straightforward. Just adapt the call in the usual way:

- `purrr::map()`, `MASS::addterm()`.
- `?purrr::map`, `?MASS::addterm`.
- `vignette("other-langs", package = "purrr")`, `vignette("longintro", package = "rpart")`
- `{purrr}`

If pkgdown can find a pkgdown site for the remote package, it will link to it; otherwise, it will link to https://rdrr.io/ for documentation and CRAN for vignettes. In order for a pkgdown site to be findable, it needs to be listed in two places:

- In the `URL` field in the `DESCRIPTION`, as in dplyr:

      URL: https://dplyr.tidyverse.org, https://github.com/tidyverse/dplyr

- In the `url` field in `_pkgdown.yml`, as in dplyr

      url: https://dplyr.tidyverse.org

  When this field is defined, pkgdown generates a public facing `pkgdown.yml` file that provides metadata about the site:

      pandoc: '2.2'
      pkgdown: 1.3.0
      pkgdown_sha: ~
      articles:
        compatibility: compatibility.html
        dplyr: dplyr.html
        dplyr_0.8.0: future/dplyr_0.8.0.html
        dplyr_0.8.0_new_hybrid: future/dplyr_0.8.0_new_hybrid.html
        programming: programming.html
        two-table: two-table.html
        window-functions: window-functions.html
      urls:
        reference: https://dplyr.tidyverse.org/reference
        article: https://dplyr.tidyverse.org/articles

Now, when you build a pkgdown site for a package that links to the dplyr documentation (e.g., `dplyr::mutate()`), pkgdown looks first in dplyr’s `DESCRIPTION` to find its website, then it looks for `pkgdown.yml`, and uses the metadata to generate the correct links.

To allow your package to be linked by other locally installed packages, even if your website is not reachable at build time, the following option needs to be set in `_pkgdown.yml`:

    deploy:
      install_metadata: true

This allows locally installed packages to access package index metadata from the locally installed copy, which may be useful if your website require auth, or you build behind a firewall.