nix develop
Run a bash shell that provides the build environment of a derivation.
Warning
This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.
Synopsis
nix develop
[option...] installable
Note: this command's interface is based heavily around installables, which you may want to read about first (nix --help
).
Examples
- Start a shell with the build environment of the default package of the flake in the current directory:
## nix develop
Typical commands to run inside this shell are:
## configurePhase
## buildPhase
## installPhase
Alternatively, you can run whatever build tools your project uses directly, e.g. for a typical Unix project:
## ./configure --prefix=$out
## make
## make install
- Run a particular build phase directly:
## nix develop --unpack
## nix develop --configure
## nix develop --build
## nix develop --check
## nix develop --install
## nix develop --installcheck
- Start a shell with the build environment of GNU Hello:
## nix develop nixpkgs#hello
- Record a build environment in a profile:
## nix develop --profile /tmp/my-build-env nixpkgs#hello
- Use a build environment previously recorded in a profile:
## nix develop /tmp/my-build-env
- Replace all occurrences of the store path corresponding to
glibc.dev
with a writable directory:
## nix develop --redirect nixpkgs#glibc.dev ~/my-glibc/outputs/dev
Note that this is useful if you're running a nix develop
shell for
nixpkgs#glibc
in ~/my-glibc
and want to compile another package
against it.
- Run a series of script commands:
## nix develop --command bash -c "mkdir build && cmake .. && make"
Description
nix develop
starts a bash
shell that provides an interactive build
environment nearly identical to what Lix would use to build
installable. Inside this shell, environment variables and shell
functions are set up so that you can interactively and incrementally
build your package.
Nix determines the build environment by building a modified version of
the derivation installable that just records the environment
initialised by stdenv
and exits. This build environment can be
recorded into a profile using --profile
.
The prompt used by the bash
shell can be customised by setting the
bash-prompt
, bash-prompt-prefix
, and bash-prompt-suffix
settings in
nix.conf
or in the flake's nixConfig
attribute.
Flake output attributes
If no flake output attribute is given, nix develop
tries the following
flake output attributes:
-
devShells.<system>.default
-
packages.<system>.default
If a flake output name is given, nix develop
tries the following flake
output attributes:
-
devShells.<system>.<name>
-
packages.<system>.<name>
-
legacyPackages.<system>.<name>
Options
-
--build
Run thebuild
phase. -
--check
Run thecheck
phase. -
--command
/-c
command args Instead of starting an interactive shell, start the specified command and arguments. -
--configure
Run theconfigure
phase. -
--ignore-environment
/-i
Clear the entire environment (except those specified with--keep
). -
--install
Run theinstall
phase. -
--installcheck
Run theinstallcheck
phase. -
--keep
/-k
name Keep the environment variable name. -
--phase
phase-name The stdenv phase to run (e.g.build
orconfigure
). -
--profile
path The profile to operate on. -
--redirect
installable outputs-dir Redirect a store path to a mutable location. -
--unpack
Run theunpack
phase. -
--unset
/-u
name Unset the environment variable name.
Common evaluation options:
-
--arg
name expr Pass the value expr as the argument name to Nix functions. -
--argstr
name string Pass the string string as the argument name to Nix functions. -
--debugger
Start an interactive environment if evaluation fails. -
--eval-store
store-url The URL of the Nix store to use for evaluation, i.e. to store derivations (.drv
files) and inputs referenced by them. -
--impure
Allow access to mutable paths and repositories. -
--include
/-I
path Add path to the Nix search path. The Nix search path is initialized from the colon-separatedNIX_PATH
environment variable, and is used to look up the location of Nix expressions using paths enclosed in angle brackets (i.e.,<nixpkgs>
).
For instance, passing
-I /home/eelco/Dev
-I /etc/nixos
will cause Lix to look for paths relative to /home/eelco/Dev
and
/etc/nixos
, in that order. This is equivalent to setting the
NIX_PATH
environment variable to
/home/eelco/Dev:/etc/nixos
It is also possible to match paths against a prefix. For example, passing
-I nixpkgs=/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch
-I /etc/nixos
will cause Lix to search for <nixpkgs/path>
in
/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch/path
and /etc/nixos/nixpkgs/path
.
If a path in the Nix search path starts with http://
or https://
,
it is interpreted as the URL of a tarball that will be downloaded and
unpacked to a temporary location. The tarball must consist of a single
top-level directory. For example, passing
-I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz
tells Lix to download and use the current contents of the master
branch in the nixpkgs
repository.
The URLs of the tarballs from the official nixos.org
channels
(see the manual page for nix-channel
) can be
abbreviated as channel:<channel-name>
. For instance, the
following two flags are equivalent:
-I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-21.05
-I nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-21.05/nixexprs.tar.xz
You can also fetch source trees using flake URLs and add them to the search path. For instance,
-I nixpkgs=flake:nixpkgs
specifies that the prefix nixpkgs
shall refer to the source tree
downloaded from the nixpkgs
entry in the flake registry. Similarly,
-I nixpkgs=flake:github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05
makes <nixpkgs>
refer to a particular branch of the
NixOS/nixpkgs
repository on GitHub.
--override-flake
original-ref resolved-ref Override the flake registries, redirecting original-ref to resolved-ref.
Common flake-related options:
-
--commit-lock-file
Commit changes to the flake's lock file. -
--inputs-from
flake-url Use the inputs of the specified flake as registry entries. -
--no-registries
Don't allow lookups in the flake registries. This option is deprecated; use--no-use-registries
. -
--no-update-lock-file
Do not allow any updates to the flake's lock file. -
--no-write-lock-file
Do not write the flake's newly generated lock file. -
--output-lock-file
flake-lock-path Write the given lock file instead offlake.lock
within the top-level flake. -
--override-input
input-path flake-url Override a specific flake input (e.g.dwarffs/nixpkgs
). This implies--no-write-lock-file
. -
--reference-lock-file
flake-lock-path Read the given lock file instead offlake.lock
within the top-level flake.
Logging-related options:
-
--debug
Set the logging verbosity level to 'debug'. -
--log-format
format Set the format of log output; one ofraw
,internal-json
,bar
orbar-with-logs
. -
--print-build-logs
/-L
Print full build logs on standard error. -
--quiet
Decrease the logging verbosity level. -
--verbose
/-v
Increase the logging verbosity level.
Miscellaneous global options:
-
--help
Show usage information. -
--offline
Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date. -
--option
name value Set the Lix configuration setting name to value (overridingnix.conf
). -
--refresh
Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date. -
--repair
During evaluation, rewrite missing or corrupted files in the Nix store. During building, rebuild missing or corrupted store paths. -
--version
Show version information.
Options that change the interpretation of installables:
-
--expr
/-E
expr Interpret installables as attribute paths relative to the Nix expression expr. -
--file
/-f
file Interpret installables as attribute paths relative to the Nix expression stored in file. If file is the character -, then a Nix expression will be read from standard input. Implies--impure
.
Note
See man nix.conf
for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.