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Manifest.json

manifest.json

The manifest file records the provenance of the packages that are installed in a profile managed by nix profile (experimental).

Here is an example of what the file might look like after installing zoom-us from Nixpkgs:

{
  "version": 1,
  "elements": [
    {
      "active": true,
      "attrPath": "legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.zoom-us",
      "originalUrl": "flake:nixpkgs",
      "storePaths": [
        "/nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927"
      ],
      "uri": "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/13d0c311e3ae923a00f734b43fd1d35b47d8943a"
    },
    …
  ]
}

Each object in the array elements denotes an installed package and has the following fields:

  • originalUrl: The flake reference specified by the user at the time of installation (e.g. nixpkgs). This is also the flake reference that will be used by nix profile upgrade.

  • uri: The locked flake reference to which originalUrl resolved.

  • attrPath: The flake output attribute that provided this package. Note that this is not necessarily the attribute that the user specified, but the one resulting from applying the default attribute paths and prefixes; for instance, hello might resolve to packages.x86_64-linux.hello and the empty string to packages.x86_64-linux.default.

  • storePath: The paths in the Nix store containing the package.

  • active: Whether the profile contains symlinks to the files of this package. If set to false, the package is kept in the Nix store, but is not "visible" in the profile's symlink tree.