My Custom Nixpkgs Overlay

This project provides templates for creating your own collection of custom Nix expressions, similar to what is done in nixpkgs. It includes a default overlay that exposes all custom packages, facilitating their integration into other projects.

While this custom repository provides a platform for developing, integrating and sharing your own packages, we encourage contributors to also consider submitting their packages directly to the official nixpkgs repository. Contributing to nixpkgs helps to enrich the broader Nix community by making your work available to a wider audience and benefiting from the collective expertise of Nix developers. However, maintaining your own repository can be advantageous for experimental, personal, or organization-specific packages that require specific configurations or are not yet ready for broader adoption.

Usage

Setting Up Your Own Repository

1. Use the my-own-nixpkgs template nix flake new --template git+https://github.com/drupol/my-own-nixpkgs#my-own-nixpkgs ./my-repo as a starting point
2. Begin adding packages to the pkgs/by-name directory. Follow the same approach as adding packages in nixpkgs (similar to RFC140). Packages added in this directory will be automatically discovered.
   • Create a new directory for each package.
   • Inside each directory, create a package.nix file.
3. Optionally, you can add packages directly to the pkgs/ directory and manually update the bindings in the imports/pkgs-all.nix file.

Using Your Own Repository

Use the client template nix flake new --template git+https://github.com/drupol/my-own-nixpkgs#client ./my-nix-project as a starting point or follow the manual steps hereunder.

To use this repository as an overlay in another project, follow these steps:

1. Add the Repository as an Input:

   Add the following to your nix file to include this repository as an input:

   inputs = {
       my-custom-nixpkgs.url = "repo-url";  # Replace "repo-url" with the actual URL to your repository
   };

2. Include the Overlay in pkgs:

   When constructing pkgs, include the overlay as follows:

   pkgs = import inputs.nixpkgs {
     overlays = [
       inputs.my-custom-nixpkgs.overlays.default
     ];
   };

3. Use Your Packages:

   Access the packages in your project like this:

   buildInputs = [ pkgs.example1 pkgs.example2 ];

Examples

Refer to the dummy projects example1 and example2 for practical examples of how packages can be structured.

Going further

• Use the continuous integration service of your choice to build and test your packages
• Add a binary cache to your repository to speed up builds and avoid recompilation using Cachix
• This project uses a flake framework, we recommend to use flake-parts

Contributing

Feel free to contribute by sending pull requests. We are a usually very responsive team and we will help you going through your pull request from the beginning to the end.

For some reasons, if you can't contribute to the code and willing to help, sponsoring is a good, sound and safe way to show us some gratitude for the hours we invested in this package.

Sponsor me on Github and/or any of the contributors.