tl;dr I implemented a todo backend in R with plumber. Use Rocker with PPAs for fast container builds. Dirk Eddelbuettel demonstrates how at this link. todo backend Todo-Backend is “a shared example to showcase backend tech stacks”, inspired by the front-end todomvc. It’s a good way to get a sense for how you might implement similar functionality in other languages. I’d read some other posts on setting up plumber apis so I decided to give it a shot.