diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 52f618d..081bb94 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 Package: gDRstyle
 Type: Package
 Title: A package with style requirements for the gDR suite 
-Version: 1.7.3
-Date: 2025-08-03
+Version: 1.7.4
+Date: 2025-08-12
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Allison", "Vuong", role=c("aut")),
     person("Dariusz", "Scigocki", role=c("aut")),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index e8f1b47..2515aae 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+## gDRstyle 1.7.4 - 2025-08-12
+* fix usage of `ifelse`
+
 ## gDRstyle 1.7.3 - 2025-08-04
 * added support for skipping vignette building in `run_tests.sh`
 
diff --git a/R/build_tools.R b/R/build_tools.R
index febb8ad..b5391fc 100644
--- a/R/build_tools.R
+++ b/R/build_tools.R
@@ -237,11 +237,18 @@ install_github <- function(name,
   if (is.null(pkg$ref)) {
     pkg$ref <- "HEAD"
   }
+  
+  host_url <- if (!is.null(pkg$host)) {
+    pkg$host
+  } else {
+    "api.github.com"
+  }
+  
   remotes::install_github(
     repo = pkg$url,
     ref = pkg$ref,
     subdir = pkg$subdir,
-    host = ifelse(!is.null(pkg$host), pkg$host, "api.github.com"),
+    host = host_url,
     upgrade = "never"
   )
   verify_version(name, pkg$ver)