Running a Shiny App from GitHub

Question

I have an R Shiny app that contains some sensitive information that I would not like to be made public, and do not want to pay for any services in order to get password authentication.

My question is if I create a private repository on GitHub with the server.R, ui.R and all supporting data and files, will anyone be able to run it with the runGitHub command (below) or in any way access my data?

library(shiny)    
runGitHub("<private repository name>", "<my user name>") 

Answer 1

if I create a private repository on GitHub with the server.R, ui.R and all supporting data and files, will anyone be able to run it with the runGitHub command ... or in any way access my data?

If the repository is private only people who have been granted access should be able to access it. This is true through the GitHub website as well as via direct Git access, which is almost certainly what runGitHub() does.

do not want to pay for any services in order to get password authentication

In general, private repositories on GitHub aren't free. Currently the cheapest plan that includes private repos is the Micro plan at $7 per month.

There are other Git hosting providers that do provide free private repositories. BitBucket and GitLab both come to mind.

It may be possible for you to get free private hosting on GitHub, e.g. if you are a student.

I have an R Shiny app that contains some sensitive information that I would not like to be made public

Finally, depending on the nature of the "sensitive information" you are trying to protect, there may be better options. It is fairly common to provide things like API keys and passwords as environment variables (especially when using PaaS providers like Heroku), or to commit "template" files like config.template.ini.