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nix-super/src/nix/run.md
Valentin Gagarin 2af9fd20c6 clarify definition of "installable" 
the term was hard to discover, as its definition and explanation were in
a very long document lacking an overview section.
search did not help because it occurs so often.

- clarify wording in the definition
- add an overview of installable types
- add "installable" to glossary
- link to definition from occurrences of the term
- be more precise about where store derivation outputs are processed
- installable Nix expressions must evaluate to a derivation

Co-authored-by: Adam Joseph <54836058+amjoseph-nixpkgs@users.noreply.github.com>
2023-03-05 01:46:17 +01:00

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R""(

Examples

  • Run the default app from the blender-bin flake:

    # nix run blender-bin

  • Run a non-default app from the blender-bin flake:

    # nix run blender-bin#blender_2_83

    Tip: you can find apps provided by this flake by running nix flake show blender-bin.

  • Run vim from the nixpkgs flake:

    # nix run nixpkgs#vim

    Note that vim (as of the time of writing of this page) is not an app but a package. Thus, Nix runs the eponymous file from the vim package.

  • Run vim with arguments:

    # nix run nixpkgs#vim -- --help

Description

nix run builds and runs installable, which must evaluate to an app or a regular Nix derivation.

If installable evaluates to an app (see below), it executes the program specified by the app definition.

If installable evaluates to a derivation, it will try to execute the program <out>/bin/<name>, where out is the primary output store path of the derivation, and name is the first of the following that exists:

  • The meta.mainProgram attribute of the derivation.
  • The pname attribute of the derivation.
  • The name part of the value of the name attribute of the derivation.

For instance, if name is set to hello-1.10, nix run will run $out/bin/hello.

Flake output attributes

If no flake output attribute is given, nix run tries the following flake output attributes:

  • apps.<system>.default

  • packages.<system>.default

If an attribute name is given, nix run tries the following flake output attributes:

  • apps.<system>.<name>

  • packages.<system>.<name>

  • legacyPackages.<system>.<name>

Apps

An app is specified by a flake output attribute named apps.<system>.<name>. It looks like this:

apps.x86_64-linux.blender_2_79 = {
  type = "app";
  program = "${self.packages.x86_64-linux.blender_2_79}/bin/blender";
};

The only supported attributes are:

  • type (required): Must be set to app.

  • program (required): The full path of the executable to run. It must reside in the Nix store.

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