Nix language: Basics - Oliver-Mustoe/Oliver-Mustoe-Tech-Journal GitHub Wiki

Nix as a language and it's used with reproducable and reporducable shell enviros is something I have used VERY minimally. The most I currently use it for is nix-shell.

nix-shell allows you to use any program available in Nix WITHOUT INSTALLING IT PERMANETLY ON THE SYSTEM. This is incredibly useful for common one-offs (like git or curl) and can be used to make dev enviroments aswell (working on learning this as you read!)

To start a ad-hoc enviro with nix-shell use the following syntax:

nix-shell -p <PACKAGES>

You can even add the --run flag to run a flag in the enviro!

Then you can cleanup with nix-collect-garbage