diff --git a/.github/workflows/r_package.yml b/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
index c6afad807ae2..a2cffb910652 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/r_package.yml
@@ -233,6 +233,7 @@ jobs:
         shell: bash
         run: |
           export PATH=/opt/R-devel/bin/:${PATH}
+          apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y tidy
           Rscript -e "install.packages(c('R6', 'data.table', 'jsonlite', 'knitr', 'Matrix', 'RhpcBLASctl', 'rmarkdown', 'testthat'), repos = 'https://cran.rstudio.com', Ncpus = parallel::detectCores())"
           sh build-cran-package.sh
           R CMD check --as-cran --run-donttest lightgbm_*.tar.gz || exit -1