Warning
This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.

Name

nix flake metadata - show flake metadata

Synopsis

nix flake metadata [option...] flake-url

Examples

Show what nixpkgs resolves to:

# nix flake metadata nixpkgs
Resolved URL:  github:edolstra/dwarffs
Locked URL:    github:edolstra/dwarffs/f691e2c991e75edb22836f1dbe632c40324215c5
Description:   A filesystem that fetches DWARF debug info from the Internet on demand
Path:          /nix/store/769s05vjydmc2lcf6b02az28wsa9ixh1-source
Revision:      f691e2c991e75edb22836f1dbe632c40324215c5
Last modified: 2021-01-21 15:41:26
Inputs:
├───nix: github:NixOS/nix/6254b1f5d298ff73127d7b0f0da48f142bdc753c
│   ├───lowdown-src: github:kristapsdz/lowdown/1705b4a26fbf065d9574dce47a94e8c7c79e052f
│   └───nixpkgs: github:NixOS/nixpkgs/ad0d20345219790533ebe06571f82ed6b034db31
└───nixpkgs follows input 'nix/nixpkgs'

Show information about dwarffs in JSON format:

# nix flake metadata dwarffs --json | jq .
{
  "description": "A filesystem that fetches DWARF debug info from the Internet on demand",
  "lastModified": 1597153508,
  "locked": {
    "lastModified": 1597153508,
    "narHash": "sha256-VHg3MYVgQ12LeRSU2PSoDeKlSPD8PYYEFxxwkVVDRd0=",
    "owner": "edolstra",
    "repo": "dwarffs",
    "rev": "d181d714fd36eb06f4992a1997cd5601e26db8f5",
    "type": "github"
  },
  "locks": { ... },
  "original": {
    "id": "dwarffs",
    "type": "indirect"
  },
  "originalUrl": "flake:dwarffs",
  "path": "/nix/store/hang3792qwdmm2n0d9nsrs5n6bsws6kv-source",
  "resolved": {
    "owner": "edolstra",
    "repo": "dwarffs",
    "type": "github"
  },
  "resolvedUrl": "github:edolstra/dwarffs",
  "revision": "d181d714fd36eb06f4992a1997cd5601e26db8f5",
  "url": "github:edolstra/dwarffs/d181d714fd36eb06f4992a1997cd5601e26db8f5"
}

Description

This command shows information about the flake specified by the flake reference flake-url. It resolves the flake reference using the flake registry, fetches it, and prints some meta data. This includes:

Resolved URL: If flake-url is a flake identifier, then this is the flake reference that specifies its actual location, looked up in the flake registry.
Locked URL: A flake reference that contains a commit or content hash and thus uniquely identifies a specific flake version.
Description: A one-line description of the flake, taken from the description field in flake.nix.
Path: The store path containing the source code of the flake.
Revision: The Git or Mercurial commit hash of the locked flake.
Revisions: The number of ancestors of the Git or Mercurial commit of the locked flake. Note that this is not available for github flakes.
Last modified: For Git or Mercurial flakes, this is the commit time of the commit of the locked flake; for tarball flakes, it's the most recent timestamp of any file inside the tarball.
Inputs: The flake inputs with their corresponding lock file entries.

With --json, the output is a JSON object with the following fields:

original and originalUrl: The flake reference specified by the user (flake-url) in attribute set and URL representation.
resolved and resolvedUrl: The resolved flake reference (see above) in attribute set and URL representation.
locked and lockedUrl: The locked flake reference (see above) in attribute set and URL representation.
description: See Description above.
path: See Path above.
revision: See Revision above.
revCount: See Revisions above.
lastModified: See Last modified above.
locks: The contents of flake.lock.

Options

--json

Produce output in JSON format, suitable for consumption by another program.

Common evaluation options

--arg name expr

Pass the value expr as the argument name to Nix functions.
--argstr name string

Pass the string string as the argument name to Nix functions.
--debugger

Start an interactive environment if evaluation fails.
--eval-store store-url

The URL of the Nix store to use for evaluation, i.e. to store derivations (.drv files) and inputs referenced by them.
--impure

Allow access to mutable paths and repositories.
--include / -I path

Add path to the Nix search path. The Nix search path is initialized from the colon-separated NIX_PATH environment variable, and is used to look up the location of Nix expressions using paths enclosed in angle brackets (i.e., <nixpkgs>).

For instance, passing
```
-I /home/eelco/Dev
-I /etc/nixos
```
will cause Nix to look for paths relative to /home/eelco/Dev and /etc/nixos, in that order. This is equivalent to setting the NIX_PATH environment variable to
```
/home/eelco/Dev:/etc/nixos
```
It is also possible to match paths against a prefix. For example, passing
```
-I nixpkgs=/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch
-I /etc/nixos
```
will cause Nix to search for <nixpkgs/path> in /home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch/path and /etc/nixos/nixpkgs/path.

If a path in the Nix search path starts with http:// or https://, it is interpreted as the URL of a tarball that will be downloaded and unpacked to a temporary location. The tarball must consist of a single top-level directory. For example, passing
```
-I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz
```
tells Nix to download and use the current contents of the master branch in the nixpkgs repository.

The URLs of the tarballs from the official nixos.org channels (see the manual page for nix-channel) can be abbreviated as channel:<channel-name>. For instance, the following two flags are equivalent:
```
-I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-21.05
-I nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-21.05/nixexprs.tar.xz
```
You can also fetch source trees using flake URLs and add them to the search path. For instance,
```
-I nixpkgs=flake:nixpkgs
```
specifies that the prefix nixpkgs shall refer to the source tree downloaded from the nixpkgs entry in the flake registry. Similarly,
```
-I nixpkgs=flake:github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05
```
makes <nixpkgs> refer to a particular branch of the NixOS/nixpkgs repository on GitHub.
--override-flake original-ref resolved-ref

Override the flake registries, redirecting original-ref to resolved-ref.

--commit-lock-file

Commit changes to the flake's lock file.
--inputs-from flake-url

Use the inputs of the specified flake as registry entries.
--no-registries

Don't allow lookups in the flake registries.

DEPRECATED

Use --no-use-registries instead.
--no-update-lock-file

Do not allow any updates to the flake's lock file.
--no-write-lock-file

Do not write the flake's newly generated lock file.
--output-lock-file flake-lock-path

Write the given lock file instead of flake.lock within the top-level flake.
--override-input input-path flake-url

Override a specific flake input (e.g. dwarffs/nixpkgs). This implies --no-write-lock-file.
--recreate-lock-file

Recreate the flake's lock file from scratch.

DEPRECATED

Use nix flake update instead.
--reference-lock-file flake-lock-path

Read the given lock file instead of flake.lock within the top-level flake.
--update-input input-path

Update a specific flake input (ignoring its previous entry in the lock file).

DEPRECATED

Use nix flake update instead.

--debug

Set the logging verbosity level to 'debug'.
--log-format format

Set the format of log output; one of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-with-logs.
--print-build-logs / -L

Print full build logs on standard error.
--quiet

Decrease the logging verbosity level.
--verbose / -v

Increase the logging verbosity level.

Miscellaneous global options

--help

Show usage information.
--offline

Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.
--option name value

Set the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding nix.conf).
--refresh

Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.
--repair

During evaluation, rewrite missing or corrupted files in the Nix store. During building, rebuild missing or corrupted store paths.
--version

Show version information.

Note

See man nix.conf for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.

Nix Reference Manual