nix-direnv

A faster, persistent implementation of direnv's use_nix, 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)

Installation

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

• via home-manager (recommended)
• via configuration.nix in NixOS
• with nix-env
• from source
• with direnv source_url

Via home-manager

In $HOME/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix add

{ pkgs, ... }:

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

  programs.direnv.enable = true;
  programs.direnv.enableNixDirenvIntegration = true;
}

Optional: To protect your nix-shell against garbage collection you also need to add these options to your Nix configuration.

If you are on NixOS also add the following lines to your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

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

On other systems with Nix add the following configuration to your /etc/nix/nix.conf:

keep-derivations = true
keep-outputs = true

Via configuration.nix in NixOS

In /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

{ pkgs, ... }: {
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ direnv nix-direnv ];
  # nix options for derivations to persist garbage collection
  nix.extraOptions = ''
    keep-outputs = true
    keep-derivations = true
  '';
  environment.pathsToLink = [
    "/share/nix-direnv"
  ];
}

Then source the direnvrc from this repository in your own $HOME/.direnvrc

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

With nix-env

As non-root user do the following:

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

Then add nix-direnv to $HOME/.direnvrc:

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

You also need to set keep-outputs and keep-derivations to nix.conf as described in the installation via home-manager section.

From source

Clone the repository to some directory

$ git clone https://github.com/nix-community/nix-direnv $HOME/nix-direnv

Then source the direnvrc from this repository in your own .direnvrc

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

You also need to set keep-outputs and keep-derivations to nix.conf as described in the installation via home-manager section.

Direnv source_url

Put the following line in your .envrc

source_url "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nix-community/nix-direnv/1.2/direnvrc" "sha256-2SLi51C+LR48zKe7jzvz9ftETwWZcQVUR1oSYJslCZ0="

Usage example

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

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

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

Then add the line use nix to your envrc:

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

Flakes support

nix-direnv also comes with a flake alternative. The code is tested and works however since future nix versions might change their api regarding this feature we cannot guarantee stability after an nix upgrade. Likewise use_nix the use_flake implementation will prevent garbage collection of downloaded packages and also for flake inputs.

Save this file as flake.nix:

{
  description = "A very basic flake";
  # Provides abstraction to boiler-code when specifying multi-platform outputs.
  inputs.flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system: let
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
    in {
      devShell = pkgs.mkShell {
        nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgs.hello ];
      };
    });
}

Then add use flake to your .envrc:

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

Storing .direnv outside the project directory

A .direnv directory will be created in each use_nix project, which might interact badly with backups (e.g. Dropbox) or IDEs.

Therefore it's possible to override a function called direnv_layout_dir in $HOME/.config/direnv/direnvrc or in each project's .envrc.

The following example will create a unique directory name per project in $HOME/.cache/direnv/layouts/:

# $HOME/.config/direnv/direnvrc
: ${XDG_CACHE_HOME:=$HOME/.cache}
declare -A direnv_layout_dirs
direnv_layout_dir() {
    echo "${direnv_layout_dirs[$PWD]:=$(
        echo -n "$XDG_CACHE_HOME"/direnv/layouts/
        echo -n "$PWD" | shasum | cut -d ' ' -f 1
    )}"
}

During direnv setup direnv_layout_dir can be called multiple times and with different values of $PWD (when other .envrc files are included). Therefore cache its results in dictionary direnv_layout_dirs.

Manually re-triggering evaluation

In some case nix-direnv does not detect if imported file has changed and still provides the old cached values. An evaluation can be triggered by updating your .envrc:

$ touch .envrc

Known Bugs

At the moment nix-direnv depends on GNU Grep and a modern Bash version. This might lead to problems on macOS. As a work-around we suggest that macOS users install direnv/grep via Nix or Homebrew.

Why not use lorri instead?

• nix-direnv has flakes support.
• High CPU load/resource usage in some cases: When nixpkgs in NIX_PATH is pointed to a directory, i.e. a git checkout, Lorri will try to evaluate nixpkgs everytime something changes causing high cpu load. Nix-direnv compromises between performance and correctness, and only re-evaluates direnv if either the project-specific default.nix / shell.nix changes, or if there is a new commit added to nixpkgs. A re-evaluation can be also triggered by using touch .envrc in the same project.
• No additional daemon or services required: The codesize is small enough that it can be vendored into a project itself.