Feature request: Nix flake / dev shell for building jcode from source
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- Dominant language
- Rust
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Description
Feature Request: Nix development environment for the repo
origin/master has no flake.nix, flake.lock, or Nix-based dev environment. NixOS users building jcode from source have to set up a pinned Rust toolchain and native dependencies manually, and there's no equivalent of a shell.nix/flake.nix to reproduce the exact toolchain, native libs (OpenSSL, mold, etc.), and build flags used for local development.
What I'd like
A Nix flake that provides a development environment, not a Nix build of jcode itself:
- Pinned Rust toolchain (matching whatever version the project builds against, ideally nightly if the parallel rustc front-end is used).
- Native build dependencies: OpenSSL, mold linker, pkg-config, and whatever else
cargo buildneeds on Linux/NixOS. - Separate shells for different build targets, since desktop pulls in far more (font shaping, GPU deps) than the TUI alone:
- a small default shell for TUI-only builds
- an optional larger shell for desktop builds
- an optional "full" shell with clippy, rustfmt, rust-src, and other tooling for contributors
- Cargo itself should keep using its normal
~/.cargoregistry cache and the repo'starget/directory. Nix should supply toolchain and system libs only, not wrapcargo buildin a sandboxed derivation, so incremental builds stay fast. - A helper script (or documented
nix developinvocation) that self-dev /scripts/dev_cargo.sh-style workflows can call soselfdev build-style commands work correctly from inside the Nix shell. - Docs (e.g.
docs/NIXOS.md) explaining the fast-start flow, what's cached vs not, and how to enter the environment vianix developor a wrapper script.
Why
Building jcode from source on NixOS currently means hand-rolling the toolchain and native deps outside of Nix's usual reproducibility guarantees. A flake-based dev shell would make selfdev builds work out of the box on NixOS with a pinned, reproducible environment, matching what non-NixOS contributors get from rustup/system packages.
Notes
Happy to share a prototype flake and dev-shell wrapper scripts I put together locally if useful as a starting point, rather than a full patch, since jcode doesn't take outside contributions.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by checking how cargo build and selfdev build-style workflows are currently invoked, along with the native dependencies and build targets used for TUI and desktop development. Add the requested flake.nix, flake.lock, development shells, helper invocation, and docs/NIXOS.md; done means NixOS contributors can enter a pinned environment with nix develop and build incrementally using the normal Cargo cache and target directory.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- nixos, rust
- Domain
- build-system, developer-experience, documentation
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 32/100