nixos-rsbuild is a (slightly opinionated) rewrite of the nixos-rebuild cli utility. The goals are as follows

• minimal barrier-of-entry to read/write the codebase in a meaningful way
• provide a pleasant documentation/help UX
• showcase Rust as an implementation tool in the nix/nixos ecosystem
• (Initially): Stand-in replacement for most of my build/switch/etc. needs
• (Stretch): Cover all supported use-cases of nixos-rebuild

Opinions

• (TODO) Will fail if cannot find a flake.nix unless --no-flake is used
• Makes more args/flags mutually exclusive. --upgrade-all implios --upgrade, so providing both will be an error.
• Aims to be relatively platform agnostic.
• no sudo: can only run as non-root user. in future, will add --sudo | -s flag to relevant subcommands in place of --use-remote-sudo

Usage:

cargo run -- <args>

• cargo run -- -h show top level help
• cargo run -- --help show top level help in long-form
• cargo run -- <builders | utils> -h show information on the two classes of tasks
• cargo run -- <subcommand> <task> --help show task help in long-form

For the "Rust Curious/Skeptic"

If you are reading this, you are probably a Nix/NixOS nerd. If you are curious and/or skeptical about Rust, particularly in the Nix/NixOS ecosystem, I strongly encourage you to ask questions, express your skepticism, and other wise promote lively discussion we can all enjoy.

Roadmap

NOTE: <flakeref> => /path/to/dir#flake.attr

1. nixos-rsbuild list-generations [--json]
2. nixos-rsbuild build
3. nixos-rsbuild build --flake /path/to#machine_name
4. nixos-rebuild boot --flake <flakeref> -> nixos-rs boot <flakeref>
5. nixos-rebuild boot -> nixos-rsbuild boot --config
6. nixos-rebuild test ... -> nixos-rsbuild test ...
7. nixos-rebuild switch ... -> nixos-rsbuild switch ...
8. nixos-rebuild switch | boot | test ... --use-remote-sudo -> nixos-rsbuild <switch | boot | test> -s ...

TODOs

• split out things into a library to leverage cargo doc
• add no_op feature so as to only emulate changes in the output
• black-box testing
• white-box testing
• system-level testing
• non-local target-aware
• non-local builde-aware