This section provides some notes on how to hack on Nix. To get the latest version of Nix from GitHub: $ git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nix.git $ cd nix To build Nix for the current operating system/architecture use $ nix-build or if you have a flakes-enabled nix: $ nix build This will build defaultPackage attribute defined in the flake.nix file. To build for other platforms add one of the following suffixes to it: aarch64-linux, i686-linux, x86_64-darwin, x86_64-linux. i.e. nix-build -A defaultPackage.x86_64-linux To build all dependencies and start a shell in which all environment variables are set up so that those dependencies can be found: $ nix-shell To build Nix itself in this shell: [nix-shell]$ ./bootstrap.sh [nix-shell]$ ./configure $configureFlags [nix-shell]$ make -j $NIX_BUILD_CORES To install it in $(pwd)/inst and test it: [nix-shell]$ make install [nix-shell]$ make installcheck [nix-shell]$ ./inst/bin/nix --version nix (Nix) 2.4 To run a functional test: make tests/test-name-should-auto-complete.sh.test If you have a flakes-enabled nix you can replace: $ nix-shell by: $ nix develop