diff --git a/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/R.gitlab-ci.yml b/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/R.gitlab-ci.yml
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+# R package developers can use this template to add CI to their R package
+# repositories on GitLab.
+# This template runs with valid R packages:
+# - https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html
+# - http://r-pkgs.had.co.nz/
+# - https://support.rstudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200486488-Developing-Packages-with-RStudio
+# This template is generic and needs no special adjustments to run on a valid
+# R package. In the deploy stage it uses pages to provide static html sites
+# for code coverage and documentation.
+
+stages:
+  # Tests the package against R versions release, devel, and old R 3.4.
+  # all tests are ran for master and merge requests.
+  # Pipeline for merge requests: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/merge_request_pipelines/
+  - test
+  # provide static html pages for coverage and pkgdown documentation
+  - deploy
+
+variables:
+  # https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-exts.html
+  R_BUILD_ARGS: "--no-resave-data --no-manual"
+  R_CHECK_ARGS: "--as-cran --no-manual"
+  # supress warning: https://stackoverflow.com/a/50388556/2324028
+  _R_CHECK_CRAN_INCOMING_: "FALSE"
+
+before_script:
+  - apt-get update
+  # install libxml, necessary for xml2 (deps of roxygen2)
+  - apt-get install -y libxml2-dev
+  # change CRAN mirror
+  - echo 'options(repos = c(CRAN = "https://cloud.r-project.org/"))' > ~/.Rprofile
+  # install dependency packages
+  - install2.r desc
+  - Rscript -e 'install.packages(desc::desc_get_deps()$package[-1])'
+
+# hidden job used by anchor in following jobs
+# https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#hidden-keys-jobs
+.test_template:
+  script: &test_script
+    - R CMD build ${R_BUILD_ARGS} .
+    - R CMD check ${R_CHECK_ARGS} $(ls -1t *.tar.gz | head -n 1)
+
+release:
+  # test against R version release
+  stage: test
+  image: rocker/r-ver:latest
+  only:
+    - master
+    - merge_request
+  script: *test_script
+  
+devel:
+  # test against R version devel
+  stage: test
+  image: rocker/r-ver:devel
+  only:
+    - master
+    - merge_request
+  script: *test_script
+
+oldR34:
+  # test against old R version 3.4
+  stage: test
+  image: rocker/r-ver:3.4
+  only:
+    - master
+    - merge_request
+  script: *test_script
+
+pages:
+  stage: deploy
+  # r-ver not possible here: https://github.com/rocker-org/rocker/issues/327
+  image: rocker/rstudio:latest
+  only:
+    - master
+  script:
+    # install curl and ssl for covr and pkgdown
+    - apt-get install -y libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev
+    # DT is suggested by covr, but required here
+    - install2.r covr DT pkgdown
+    # install current package (mandatory for vignettes)
+    - R CMD INSTALL .
+    # coverage
+    - Rscript -e 'covr::gitlab(quiet = FALSE)'
+    # pkgdown
+    - Rscript -e 'pkgdown::build_site(preview = FALSE)'
+    - mv docs/ public/
+  coverage: '/Coverage: \d+\.\d+\%/'
+  artifacts:
+    paths:
+      - public