pkgs.mkShell {#sec-pkgs-mkShell}#

pkgs.mkShell is a specialized stdenv.mkDerivation that removes some repetition when using it with nix-shell (or nix develop).

Usage {#sec-pkgs-mkShell-usage}#

Here is a common usage example:

{
  pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { },
}:
pkgs.mkShell {
  packages = [ pkgs.gnumake ];

  inputsFrom = [
    pkgs.hello
    pkgs.gnutar
  ];

  shellHook = ''
    export DEBUG=1
  '';
}

Attributes {#sec-pkgs-mkShell-attributes}#

• name (default: nix-shell). Set the name of the derivation.
• packages (default: []). Add executable packages to the nix-shell environment.
• inputsFrom (default: []). Add build dependencies of the listed derivations to the nix-shell environment.
• shellHook (default: ""). Bash statements that are executed by nix-shell.

... all the attributes of stdenv.mkDerivation.

Variants {#sec-pkgs-mkShell-variants}#

pkgs.mkShellNoCC is a variant that uses stdenvNoCC instead of stdenv as base environment. This is useful if no C compiler is needed in the shell environment.

Building the shell {#sec-pkgs-mkShell-building}#

This derivation output will contain a text file that contains a reference to all the build inputs. This is useful in CI where we want to make sure that every derivation, and its dependencies, build properly. Or when creating a GC root so that the build dependencies don't get garbage-collected.