Warning
This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.
Name
nix develop
- run a bash shell that provides the build environment of a derivation
Synopsis
nix develop
[option...] installable
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 fornixpkgs#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 Nix 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
-
Run the
build
phase. -
Run the
check
phase. -
--command
/-c
command argsInstead of starting an interactive shell, start the specified command and arguments.
-
Run the
configure
phase. -
--ignore-environment
/-i
Clear the entire environment (except those specified with
--keep
). -
Run the
install
phase. -
Run the
installcheck
phase. -
--keep
/-k
nameKeep the environment variable name.
-
--phase
phase-nameThe stdenv phase to run (e.g.
build
orconfigure
). -
--profile
pathThe profile to operate on.
-
--redirect
installable outputs-dirRedirect a store path to a mutable location.
-
Run the
unpack
phase. -
--unset
/-u
nameUnset the environment variable name.
Common evaluation options
-
--arg
name exprPass the value expr as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--arg-from-file
name pathPass the contents of file path as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--arg-from-stdin
namePass the contents of stdin as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--argstr
name stringPass the string string as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
Start an interactive environment if evaluation fails.
-
--eval-store
store-urlThe URL of the Nix store to use for evaluation, i.e. to store derivations (
.drv
files) and inputs referenced by them. -
Allow access to mutable paths and repositories.
-
--include
/-I
pathAdd 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 Nix to look for paths relative to
/home/eelco/Dev
and/etc/nixos
, in that order. This is equivalent to setting theNIX_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 Nix 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://
orhttps://
, 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 Nix to download and use the current contents of the
master
branch in thenixpkgs
repository.The URLs of the tarballs from the official
nixos.org
channels (see the manual page fornix-channel
) can be abbreviated aschannel:<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 thenixpkgs
entry in the flake registry. Similarly,-I nixpkgs=flake:github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05
makes
<nixpkgs>
refer to a particular branch of theNixOS/nixpkgs
repository on GitHub. -
--override-flake
original-ref resolved-refOverride the flake registries, redirecting original-ref to resolved-ref.
Common flake-related options
-
Commit changes to the flake's lock file.
-
--inputs-from
flake-urlUse the inputs of the specified flake as registry entries.
-
Don't allow lookups in the flake registries.
DEPRECATED
Use
--no-use-registries
instead. -
Do not allow any updates to the flake's lock file.
-
Do not write the flake's newly generated lock file.
-
--output-lock-file
flake-lock-pathWrite the given lock file instead of
flake.lock
within the top-level flake. -
--override-input
input-path flake-urlOverride a specific flake input (e.g.
dwarffs/nixpkgs
). This implies--no-write-lock-file
. -
Recreate the flake's lock file from scratch.
DEPRECATED
Use
nix flake update
instead. -
--reference-lock-file
flake-lock-pathRead the given lock file instead of
flake.lock
within the top-level flake. -
--update-input
input-pathUpdate a specific flake input (ignoring its previous entry in the lock file).
DEPRECATED
Use
nix flake update
instead.
Logging-related options
-
Set the logging verbosity level to 'debug'.
-
--log-format
formatSet the format of log output; one of
raw
,internal-json
,bar
orbar-with-logs
. -
--print-build-logs
/-L
Print full build logs on standard error.
-
Decrease the logging verbosity level.
-
--verbose
/-v
Increase the logging verbosity level.
Miscellaneous global options
-
Show usage information.
-
Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.
-
--option
name valueSet the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding
nix.conf
). -
Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.
-
During evaluation, rewrite missing or corrupted files in the Nix store. During building, rebuild missing or corrupted store paths.
-
Show version information.
Options that change the interpretation of installables
-
--expr
exprInterpret installables as attribute paths relative to the Nix expression expr.
-
--file
/-f
fileInterpret 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.