lix/src/nix/run.md

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Examples

• Run the default app from the blender-bin flake:

  # nix run blender-bin
  

• Run a non-default app from the blender-bin flake:

  # nix run blender-bin#blender_2_83
  

  Tip: you can find apps provided by this flake by running nix flake show blender-bin.

• Run vim from the nixpkgs flake:

  # nix run nixpkgs#vim
  

  Note that vim (as of the time of writing of this page) is not an app but a package. Thus, Nix runs the eponymous file from the vim package.

• Run vim with arguments:

  # nix run nixpkgs#vim -- --help
  

Description

nix run builds and runs installable, which must evaluate to an app or a regular Nix derivation.

If installable evaluates to an app (see below), it executes the program specified by the app definition.

If installable evaluates to a derivation, it will try to execute the program <out>/bin/<name>, where out is the primary output store path of the derivation and name is the meta.mainProgram attribute of the derivation if it exists, and otherwise the name part of the value of the name attribute of the derivation (e.g. if name is set to hello-1.10, it will run $out/bin/hello).

Flake output attributes

If no flake output attribute is given, nix run tries the following flake output attributes:

• defaultApp.<system>

• defaultPackage.<system>

If an attribute name is given, nix run tries the following flake output attributes:

• apps.<system>.<name>

• packages.<system>.<name>

• legacyPackages.<system>.<name>

Apps

An app is specified by a flake output attribute named apps.<system>.<name> or defaultApp.<system>. It looks like this:

apps.x86_64-linux.blender_2_79 = {
  type = "app";
  program = "${self.packages.x86_64-linux.blender_2_79}/bin/blender";
};

The only supported attributes are:

• type (required): Must be set to app.

• program (required): The full path of the executable to run. It must reside in the Nix store.

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