A faster, persistent implementation of direnv's use_nix and use_flake, to replace the built-in one.

Prominent features:

• significantly faster after the first run by caching the nix-shell environment
• prevents garbage collection of build dependencies by symlinking the resulting shell derivation in the user's gcroots (Life is too short to lose your project's build cache if you are on a flight with no internet connection)

Compared to lorri, nix-direnv is simpler (and requires no external daemon) and supports flakes. Additionally, lorri can sometimes re-evaluate the entirety of nixpkgs on every change (leading to perpetual high CPU load).

Heads up: nix-direnv requires a modern Bash and GNU Grep. MacOS ships with outdated or non-GNU versions of these tools, As a work-around we suggest that macOS users install direnv/grep via Nix or Homebrew. Discussion of these problems can be found here.

There are different ways to install nix-direnv, pick your favourite:

{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  # ...other config, other config...

  programs.direnv.enable = true;
  programs.direnv.nix-direnv.enable = true;
  # optional for nix flakes support in home-manager 21.11, not required in home-manager unstable or 22.05
  programs.direnv.nix-direnv.enableFlakes = true;

  programs.bash.enable = true;
  # OR
  programs.zsh.enable = true;
  # Or any other shell you're using.
}

{ pkgs, ... }: {
  nix.extraOptions = ''
    keep-outputs = true
    keep-derivations = true
  '';
}

keep-derivations = true
keep-outputs = true

if ! has nix_direnv_version || ! nix_direnv_version 2.3.0; then
  source_url "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nix-community/nix-direnv/2.3.0/direnvrc" "sha256-Dmd+j63L84wuzgyjITIfSxSD57Tx7v51DMxVZOsiUD8="
fi

{ pkgs, ... }: {
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ direnv nix-direnv ];
  # nix options for derivations to persist garbage collection
  nix.settings = {
    keep-outputs = true;
    keep-derivations = true;
  };
  environment.pathsToLink = [
    "/share/nix-direnv"
  ];
  # if you also want support for flakes
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    (self: super: { nix-direnv = super.nix-direnv.override { enableFlakes = true; }; } )
  ];
}

# put this in ~/.config/direnv/direnvrc
source /run/current-system/sw/share/nix-direnv/direnvrc

nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA nix-direnv

source $HOME/.nix-profile/share/nix-direnv/direnvrc

nix profile install nixpkgs#nix-direnv

source $HOME/.nix-profile/share/nix-direnv/direnvrc

# put this in ~/.config/direnv/direnvrc
source $HOME/nix-direnv/direnvrc

Either add shell.nix or a default.nix to the project directory:

# save this as shell.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}}:

pkgs.mkShell {
  packages = [ pkgs.hello ];
}

Then add the line use nix to your envrc:

$ echo "use nix" >> .envrc
$ direnv allow

If you haven't used direnv before, make sure to hook it into your shell first.

You may use a different file name than shell.nix or default.nix by passing the file name in .envrc, e.g.:

$ echo "use nix foo.nix" >> .envrc

nix-direnv also comes with an alternative use_flake implementation. The code is tested and does work but the upstream flake api is not finalized, so we we cannot guarantee stability after an nix upgrade.

Like use_nix, our use_flake will prevent garbage collection of downloaded packages, including flake inputs.

This repository ships with a flake template. which provides a basic flake with devShell integration and a basic .envrc.

To make use of this template, you may issue the following command:

$ nix flake new -t github:nix-community/nix-direnv <desired output path>

$ echo "use flake" >> .envrc && direnv allow

The use flake line also takes an additional arbitrary flake parameter, so you can point at external flakes as follows:

use flake ~/myflakes#project

Under the covers, use_flake calls nix print-dev-env. The first argument to the use_flake function is the flake expression to use, and all other arguments are proxied along to the call to print-dev-env. You may make use of this fact for some more arcane invocations.

For instance, if you have a flake that needs to be called impurely under some conditions, you may wish to pass --impure to the print-dev-env invocation so that the environment of the calling shell is passed in.

You can do that as follows:

$ echo "use flake . --impure" > .envrc
$ direnv allow

Like use flake, use nix now uses nix print-dev-env. Due to historical reasons, the argument parsing emulates nix shell.

This leads to some limitations in what we can reasonably parse.

Currently, all single-word arguments and some well-known double arguments will be interpeted or passed along.

• -p: Starts a list of packages to install; consumes all remaining arguments
• --include / -I: Add the following path to the list of lookup locations for <...> file names
• --attr / -A: Specify the output attribute to utilize

--command, --run, --exclude, --pure, -i, and --keep are explicitly ignored.

All single word arguments (-j4, --impure etc) are passed to the underlying nix invocation.

nix-direnv makes a performance tradeoff and only considers changes in a limited number of files when deciding to update its cache.

• for use nix this is:

  • ~/.direnvrc
  • ~/.config/direnv/direnvrc
  • .envrc,
  • A single nix file. In order of preference:
    • The file argument to use nix
    • default.nix if it exists
    • shell.nix if it exists

• for use flake this is:

  • ~/.direnvrc
  • ~/.config/direnv/direnvrc
  • .envrc
  • flake.nix
  • flake.lock
  • devshell.toml if it exists

To add more files to be checked use nix_direnv_watch_file like this

nix_direnv_watch_file your-file.nix
use nix # or use flake

Or - if you don't mind the overhead (runtime and conceptual) of watching all nix-files:

nix_direnv_watch_file $(find . -name "*.nix" -printf '"%p" ')

Note that this will re-execute direnv for any nix change, regardless of whether that change is meaningful for the devShell in use.

nix_direnv_watch_file must be invoked before either use flake or use nix to take effect.

• Changing where direnv stores its cache
• Quickly setting up direnv in a new nix project

• lorri
• sorri
• nixify
• lorelei