comma VS nix-direnv

Nowadays, I tend to try things out with comma, then add them to my configuration for later use. Some tools are not even installed in my systems because I use them so infrequently - opening a terminal and running , freecad is basically as easy as actually having it installed.

There's a version of this approach that uses nix-index to figure out which package a command is in called comma: https://github.com/nix-community/comma

Relatedly, check out comma. It's basically a shortcut prefix command that will search packages for the binary you want to run (via nix-index), and gives you an interactive choice if there are multiple. Which package was drill in again? No matter, I'll just prefix a comma :)

https://github.com/nix-community/comma

this + if you want to run a command automatically I suggest comma

Yeah dude. Emphemeral installs are a feature, not a bug. Similar vein is , https://github.com/nix-community/comma

You're looking for https://github.com/nix-community/comma

One of the nicest tools is comma. https://github.com/Shopify/comma. It's just a light weight wrapper around searching nix-pkgs and running something, but it sure makes a lot of things easier when you're sharing somebody else's laptop.

If you want to test out some program, I would STRONGLY recommend using nix-shell -p . This will create temporary environment, that will allow you to test out the package. You can also check out comma.

I love using Shopifys comma tool https://github.com/Shopify/comma cause it's so useful for just small programs that u need to run once and then forget about them

BTW: I personally use direnv with nix-direnv. This basically works by setting your shell with proper tooling when you enter the directory.

I'm not sure what you mean by nix env, maybe you are referring to nix-direnv?

Although currently I'm using direnv + nix-direnv. Keep in mind that direnv has builtin nix support which is very basic and doesn't do any caching. So you still needs this add-on to preserve roots.

I distinguish between system level things and user level things, even though I don't really have different users on my machine. I install the bare minimum number of packages + a lot of different drivers in the configuration.nix, and desktop and editor related things in HM. For development environment, I have environment per project using mkShell and https://github.com/nix-community/nix-direnv, which allows you to switch to the specific environment once you cd into the directory. (Although I do have python installed globally with some commonly used packages such as numpy, so I can just start python and write something when I need to, without creating an environment)

I further make my software projects so that when I click a link I go into an environment pre-loaded with their dependencies so dropping in/out of projects is always frictionless. I do this with the reproducibility guarantees of nix, along with glue like nix-direnv and envrc-mode to direnv.

(I also use nix-direnv)

direnv

Personally I use nix-direnv. No longer the need to run nix develop or nix-shell. By setting up a .envrc with either use nix or use flake it will automatically install all the packages from default/shell.nix or flake.nix

Direnv is installed using the nix-direnv installation instructions under "Via configuration.nix in NixOS". I read some recommendations that envrc.el is a better alternative then direnv.el, and after some testing I have to agree. (envrc-global-mode) is enabled in my config. This works perfectly with a normal emacs instance.