Skip to content

nix derivation show

Show the contents of a store derivation.

Warning

This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.

Synopsis

nix derivation show [option...] installables...

Note: this command's interface is based heavily around installables, which you may want to read about first (nix --help).

Examples

## nix derivation show nixpkgs#hello
{
  "/nix/store/s6rn4jz1sin56rf4qj5b5v8jxjm32hlk-hello-2.10.drv": {
    …
  }
}
  • Show the full derivation graph (if available) that produced your NixOS system:
## nix derivation show -r /run/current-system
  • Print all files fetched using fetchurl by Firefox's dependency graph:
## nix derivation show -r nixpkgs#firefox 
  | jq -r '.[] | select(.outputs.out.hash and .env.urls) | .env.urls' 
  | uniq | sort

Note that .outputs.out.hash selects fixed-output derivations (derivations that produce output with a specified content hash), while .env.urls selects derivations with a urls attribute.

Description

This command prints on standard output a JSON representation of the store derivations to which installables evaluate.

Store derivations are used internally by Nix. They are store paths with extension .drv that represent the build-time dependency graph to which a Nix expression evaluates.

By default, this command only shows top-level derivations, but with --recursive, it also shows their dependencies.

The JSON output is a JSON object whose keys are the store paths of the derivations, and whose values are a JSON object with the following fields:

  • name: The name of the derivation. This is used when calculating the store paths of the derivation's outputs.

  • outputs: Information about the output paths of the derivation. This is a JSON object with one member per output, where the key is the output name and the value is a JSON object with these fields:

  • path: The output path.

  • hashAlgo: For fixed-output derivations, the hashing algorithm (e.g. sha256), optionally prefixed by r: if hash denotes a NAR hash rather than a flat file hash.
  • hash: For fixed-output derivations, the expected content hash in base-16.

Example:

"outputs": {
  "out": {
    "path": "/nix/store/2543j7c6jn75blc3drf4g5vhb1rhdq29-source",
    "hashAlgo": "r:sha256",
    "hash": "6fc80dcc62179dbc12fc0b5881275898f93444833d21b89dfe5f7fbcbb1d0d62"
  }
}

  • inputSrcs: A list of store paths on which this derivation depends.

  • inputDrvs: A JSON object specifying the derivations on which this derivation depends, and what outputs of those derivations. For example,

"inputDrvs": {
  "/nix/store/6lkh5yi7nlb7l6dr8fljlli5zfd9hq58-curl-7.73.0.drv": ["dev"],
  "/nix/store/fn3kgnfzl5dzym26j8g907gq3kbm8bfh-unzip-6.0.drv": ["out"]
}

specifies that this derivation depends on the dev output of curl, and the out output of unzip.

  • system: The system type on which this derivation is to be built (e.g. x86_64-linux).

  • builder: The absolute path of the program to be executed to run the build. Typically this is the bash shell (e.g. /nix/store/r3j288vpmczbl500w6zz89gyfa4nr0b1-bash-4.4-p23/bin/bash).

  • args: The command-line arguments passed to the builder.

  • env: The environment passed to the builder.

Options

  • --recursive / -r Include the dependencies of the specified derivations.

  • --stdin Read installables from the standard input. No default installable applied.

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-separated NIX_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 of flake.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 of flake.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 of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-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 (overriding nix.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.