Merge pull request #809 from wlandau/738-instantiate

Document a CmdStan-focused way to pre-compile Stan models in R packages

Author: jgabry

vignettes/cmdstanr-internals.Rmd

@@ -470,6 +470,24 @@ CmdStanR can of course be used for developing other packages that require compil
 and running Stan models as well as using new or custom Stan features available
 through CmdStan.
 
+### Pre-compiled Stan models in R packages
+
+You may compile a Stan model at runtime (e.g. just before sampling),
+or you may compile all the models inside the package file system in advance at installation time.
+The latter avoids compilations at runtime, which matters in centrally managed R installations
+where users should not compile their own software.
+
+To pre-compile all the models in a package,
+you may create top-level scripts `configure` and `configure.win`
+which run `cmdstan_model()` with `compile = TRUE` and save the compiled executables
+somewhere inside the `inst/` folder of the package source.
+The [`instantiate`](https://wlandau.github.io/instantiate/) package helps developers
+configure packages this way,
+and it documents other topics such as submitting to CRAN and administering CmdStan.
+Kevin Ushey's [`configure`](https://github.com/kevinushey/configure) package helps
+create and manage package configuration files in general.
+
+
 ### Troubleshooting and debugging
 
 When developing or testing new features it might be useful to have more