nix-shell 0.0.3

Invoke reproducible Nix shells from Python.

py-nix-shell

Invoke commands sourced from Nix. This is mainly intended for those who vend cli tools inside environments that often support Nix and need to be able to reproducibly invoke those tools.

If folks don't have Nix, it will attempt to run the command anyways, and then provide an information install-error style message (either packages to install or a suggestion to install Nix).

This is a drop-in replacement for subprocess -- so you can substitute your calls from subprocess.<method> to nix_shell.<method>.

If Nix is not installed, this (by default) falls back to a non-Nix shell.

Installation

pip install nix-shell

Usage

import nix_shell

# nix_shell supports existing subprocess commands

# if the command name matches the nixpkgs name, use that
# see https://search.nixos.org/packages for a list of packages
nix_shell.run(["curl", "https://google.com"])

# you can also specify the nix packages to install
nix_shell.run(["curl", "https://google.com"], packages=["curlMinimal"])

# you can also use a dev environment from a flake
nix_shell.run(["curl", "https://google.com"], flake="github:chadac/py-nix-shell#sample-curl-env")

# this supports

It is also possible to specify a common environment to run commands under:

import nix_shell

nix = nix_shell.from_flake("/path/to/my/flake.nix")

nix.run(["curl", "https://google.com"])

nix_shell.mk_shell(packages=["git"])