2023-12-04 20:41:47 +00:00
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---
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title: A Nix Flake Template
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date: 2023-11-07
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summary: I wrote a Nix ❄ Template
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---
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2023-11-07 15:40:28 +00:00
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I learned to use Nix when flakes were already ubiquitous, and I realized
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recently that by learning Nix through flakes I adopted some bad coding habits. I
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don't think I am the only one that tends to overload their `flake.nix` (the
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flake of [Nix](http://github.com/nixos/nix/blob/master/flake.nix) is over 700
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lines long at the time of writing). Paradoxically, this makes flake expressions
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less discoverable, or at least less flexible. For instance, how do you override
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the package expression defined in a `flake.nix` to try and build it for a system
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that is not explicitly exposed by this flake? In many cases, you can't! Just
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fork the repository and patch the Nix code!
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A friend recently told me about [Niv](https://github.com/nmattia/niv), and I
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really liked the way I naturally set up my projects when trying it out, namely
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in a more modular fashion than before. Even if I decided to stick with flakes, I will
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be trying to write them in a more modular way going forward.
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If you are interested, I wrote a
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[template](https://github.com/pnmadelaine/flake) that I will be using for medium
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to large projects in the future (it may be a bit ridiculous for smaller flakes).
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For a non-trivial example, you can take a look at
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[Typhon](https://github.com/typhon-ci/typhon) (more on that soon, hopefully!).
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