Name

nix env shell - run a shell in which the specified packages are available

Synopsis

nix env shell [option…] installables…

Examples

•

Start a shell providing youtube-dl from the nixpkgs flake:

# nix shell nixpkgs#youtube-dl
# youtube-dl --version
2020.11.01.1

•

Start a shell providing GNU Hello from NixOS 20.03:

# nix shell nixpkgs/nixos-20.03#hello

•

Run GNU Hello:

# nix shell nixpkgs#hello --command hello --greeting 'Hi everybody!'
Hi everybody!

•

Run multiple commands in a shell environment:

# nix shell nixpkgs#gnumake --command sh -c "cd src && make"

•

Run GNU Hello in a chroot store:

# nix shell --store ~/my-nix nixpkgs#hello --command hello

•

Start a shell providing GNU Hello in a chroot store:

# nix shell --store ~/my-nix nixpkgs#hello nixpkgs#bashInteractive --command bash

Note that it’s necessary to specify bash explicitly because your default shell (e.g. /bin/bash) generally will not exist in the chroot.

Description

nix shell runs a command in an environment in which the $PATH variable provides the specified installables. If no command is specified, it starts the default shell of your user account specified by $SHELL.

Use as a #!-interpreter

You can use nix as a script interpreter to allow scripts written in arbitrary languages to obtain their own dependencies via Nix. This is done by starting the script with the following lines:

#! /usr/bin/env nix
#! nix shell installables --command real-interpreter

where real-interpreter is the “real” script interpreter that will be invoked by nix shell after it has obtained the dependencies and initialised the environment, and installables are the attribute names of the dependencies in Nixpkgs.

The lines starting with #! nix specify options (see above). Note that you cannot write #! /usr/bin/env nix shell -i ... because many operating systems only allow one argument in #! lines.

For example, here is a Python script that depends on Python and the prettytable package:

#! /usr/bin/env nix
#! nix shell github:tomberek/-#python3With.prettytable --command python
import prettytable
# Print a simple table.
t = prettytable.PrettyTable(["N", "N^2"])
for n in range(1, 10): t.add_row([n, n * n])
print t

Similarly, the following is a Perl script that specifies that it requires Perl and the HTML::TokeParser::Simple and LWP packages:

#! /usr/bin/env nix
#! nix shell github:tomberek/-#perlWith.HTMLTokeParserSimple.LWP --command perl -x
use HTML::TokeParser::Simple;
# Fetch nixos.org and print all hrefs.
my $p = HTML::TokeParser::Simple->new(url => 'http://nixos.org/');
while (my $token = $p->get_tag("a")) {
    my $href = $token->get_attr("href");
    print "$href\n" if $href;
}

Sometimes you need to pass a simple Nix expression to customize a package like Terraform:

#! /usr/bin/env nix
#! nix shell --impure --expr ``
#! nix with (import (builtins.getFlake ''nixpkgs'') {});
#! nix terraform.withPlugins (plugins: [ plugins.openstack ])
#! nix ``
#! nix --command bash
terraform "$@"

Finally, using the merging of multiple nix shell shebangs the following Haskell script uses a specific branch of Nixpkgs/NixOS (the 21.11 stable branch):

#!/usr/bin/env nix
#!nix shell --override-input nixpkgs github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-21.11
#!nix github:tomberek/-#haskellWith.download-curl.tagsoup --command runghc
import Network.Curl.Download
import Text.HTML.TagSoup
import Data.Either
import Data.ByteString.Char8 (unpack)
-- Fetch nixos.org and print all hrefs.
main = do
  resp <- openURI "https://nixos.org/"
  let tags = filter (isTagOpenName "a") $ parseTags $ unpack $ fromRight undefined resp
  let tags' = map (fromAttrib "href") tags
  mapM_ putStrLn $ filter (/= "") tags'

If you want to be even more precise, you can specify a specific revision of Nixpkgs:

#!nix shell --override-input nixpkgs github:NixOS/nixpkgs/eabc38219184cc3e04a974fe31857d8e0eac098d

You can also use a Nix expression to build your own dependencies. For example, the Python example could have been written as:

#! /usr/bin/env nix
#! nix shell --impure --file deps.nix -i python

where the file deps.nix in the same directory as the #!-script contains:

with import <nixpkgs> {};
python3.withPackages (ps: with ps; [ prettytable ])

Options

•

--command / -c command args

Command and arguments to be executed, defaulting to $SHELL

•

--ignore-environment / -i

Clear the entire environment (except those specified with --keep).

•

--keep / -k name

Keep the environment variable name.

•

--stdin

Read installables from the standard input. No default installable applied.

•

--unset / -u name

Unset the environment variable name.