nixpkgs-devshell - a development environment for NixOS/nixpkgs

STATUS: unstable

A decent way to get/stay productive when contributing to NixOS/nixpkgs.

Unless owning a huge body of experience, when contributing to NixOS/nixpkgs, you wonder:

• What's the currently "blessed" way of adding a say golang package? (tbd via nix flake templates)
• Where should that go within the folder hierarchy? (tbd via a small interactive utility script)
• How exactly do I properly test my prototype?
• Is the formatting in line with the current best practises?
• How to best deal with the github process (and the overwhelming amount of issues / prs)?

To find an answer to any of those questions, you could read through the manual, skim through github issues or scan the forum for clues and riddles.

You might even make a new friend along your quest.

But, if all you want to do is to get productive with your contributing job, this devshell provides you with a decent environment to start with. And in addition to a new friend, you might discover a tool or workflow that you didn't know before and that helps you get that contributing job done as effectively as possible.

$ cd NixOS/nixpkgs # your local clone of NixOS/nixpkgs

$ nix develop github:blaggacao/nixpkgs-devshell

🔨 Welcome to nixpkgs

[general commands]

  menu                 - prints this menu

[github]

  bugs                 - List issues labeled as bugs
  gh                   - GitHub CLI tool
  issue-status         - Information about relevant issues
  packaging-requests   - List issues labeled as packaging requests (chill out work)
  pr-status            - Information about relevant PRs

[linters]

  editorconfig-checker - A tool to verify that your files are in harmony with your .editorconfig
  evalnix              - Check Nix parsing
  fmt                  - Check Nix formatting

[workflow]

  new                  - Bootstrap a new contribution from templates
  review               - Review your contribution against current upstream before submitting
  update               - Update a package / your contribution

$ new
Usage: new TEMPLATE

Templates:
  go-module                      how-to package a go module for nixpkgs

  go-package                     how-to package a go package for nixpkgs

$ review
Usage: review [OPTS] COMMAND

Options:
  --system                       review for a different architecure


Commands:
  unstaged                       review unstaged changes

  staged                         review staged changes

$ update
Usage: update [OPTS] PACKAGE

Options:
  --commit                       Commit the update with an appropriate commit message

  --review                       Validate this and all dependent packages

[nixpkgs]$

How it works

nixpkgs-devshell, at its heart, is an opinionated devshell:

• it provides a pre-selected set of ecosystem tooling that reflects current best practises
• it shows a practical message of the day, as the first point of contact
• it gradually might hold a growing collection of language-specific nix flake templates, as language subsystem maintainers begin to percive the value of submitting and maintaining them. (Please do! 😉)

Future development

• a way for language subsystems to provide up-to-date and authoritative templates / examples
• an interactive helper to navigate the nixpkgs folder hierarchy
• provide an environment flag to disable the message of the day

License

Copyright (c) 2021 David Arnold under the MIT.