github:clo4/mkshell

Experiment: an easier way to create dev shells.

This is intended for my own local-only usage, not for publishing. When a flake is published, it should ideally be more complete.

Usage

First, add mkshell to your registry. Flake outputs automatically use the registry for named attributes if there isn't an input corresponding to it.

nix registry add mkshell github:clo4/mkshell

When you're ready to create a dev environment, create a flake that takes mkshell and nixpkgs as arguments to its outputs. The nixpkgs argument is instantiated and passed to the function as the pkgs argument. The function returns a valid argument for pkgs.mkShell.

{
  outputs = { mkshell, nixpkgs, ... }:
    mkshell.mkShell nixpkgs (pkgs: {
      packages = with pkgs; [
        # ...
      ];
    });
}

Now, with no inputs, no complicated outputs tree, and as minimal boilerplate as is possible, you can now define a dev shell in your flake. Of course, it's not quite as fast as the old shell.nix style:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
pkgs.mkShell {
  packages = with pkgs; [
    # ...
  ];
}

... but you get all the advantages of using flakes at he cost of a couple extra (mostly empty) lines.