What is the best way to use this without committing flake.nix to the repository?

[ex-nix]

I can't simply add files like these to the repository, as it's a company project. If I add flake.nix to .git/info/exclude I get an error saying that the git tree is dirty.

Thanks :)

[ex-nix]

You can't make this stuff up. Right after making this post, I come across this forum post.

Solution: use flake path:.

[shanesveller]

In case it's helpful to you or anyone searching:

Historically in this scenario I've used a flake managed as a separate repo entirely, and then called nix develop <absolute-or-relative-path>. The approach works well with direnv as well, which can likewise be written as use flake <relative-or-absolute-path> and then you can just gitignore .envrc. Optionally you can use the .git/info/exclude file to keep even that much out of the primary repository.

This strategy can also be used for multiple disparate projects that have very uniform requirements, all pointing to the same out-of-tree flake. Sadly I almost never get that much homogeneity in my own work.

[ex-nix]

Great! In my case a local flake works better since that way I can read from the local .tool-versions, but it's good to know there are other ways!