nix-search-cli

nix-search is a CLI client for search.nixos.org/packages. Use nix-search to find packages by name, description, installed programs, or other metadata. Does not work offline.

# Search for a package
nix-search <text to match>

# Use a specific channel
nix-search --channel unstable --query <text to match>
# Show full usage / help
nix-search --help

For example, figuring out how to install gcloud:

# nix-search gcloud
google-cloud-sdk-gce -> [bq, docker-credential-gcloud, gcloud, gsutil, git-credential-gcloud.sh]
google-cloud-sdk -> [git-credential-gcloud.sh, docker-credential-gcloud, gcloud, bq, gsutil]
rPackages.tagcloud
perl536Packages.HTMLTagCloud
perl534Packages.HTMLTagCloud

Install

Golang:

# run it
go run github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli/cmd/nix-search@latest --help
# install it
go install github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli/cmd/nix-search@latest

Docker:

# run it
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/peterldowns/nix-search-cli:latest --help
# pull it
docker pull ghcr.io/peterldowns/nix-search-cli:latest

Nix (flakes):

# run it
nix run github:peterldowns/nix-search-cli --help
# build it
nix build github:peterldowns/nix-search-cli

Manual:

Visit the latest Github release
Download the appropriate binary: nix-search-$os-$arch

Motivation

Nix is useful as a way to install packages, but without this project there is no easy way to find the attribute name to use to install a given program.

The Nix Wiki page on "Searching Packages" recommends using the search.nixos.org interface, but doing this requires using a browser.

As for nix-env --query, it supports searching over attribute names, but not other fields or metadata (including the programs that the attribute installs).

For instance, you can use nix-env -qaP to search for attribute names:

# nix-env -qaP google-cloud-sdk
nixpkgs.google-cloud-sdk      google-cloud-sdk-408.0.1
nixpkgs.google-cloud-sdk-gce  google-cloud-sdk-408.0.1

but you cannot find an attribute name given a binary you'd like to install:

# nix-env -qaP gcloud
error: selector 'gcloud' matches no derivations

Contributing

Common tasks are run by just

# show all available commands
just
just --list

This repository is compatible with nix (standard), nix (flakes), direnv, and lorri. You can explicitly enter a development shell with all necessary dependencies with either nix develop (flakes) or nix shell (standard).

This repository ships configuration details for VSCode. After entering a development shell, run code . from the root of the repository to open VSCode.

# get developer dependencies by entering a nix shell.
# if you have direnv / lorri installed, you just need to allow the config once.
nix develop # (flakes)
nix-shell # (standard)
direnv allow # direnv

Testing and Linting:

just test
just lint

Building:

# build with `go build`, result is in `./bin/nix-search`
just build
# build with `nix`, result is in `./result/bin/nix-search`
nix build # (flakes)
nix-build # (standard)

Run the binary:

# if built with `just build`:
./bin/nix-search --help
# if built with `nix build` or `nix-build`:
./result/bin/nix-search --help
# or, you can build + run directly through nix:
nix run . -- help # flakes
# or, you can open a new shell with the binary available on $PATH through nix:
nix shell # and then `nix-search`
nix shell -c nix-search --help # directly run `nix-search` from inside this shell

Updating the gomod2nix file

gomod2nix

Update the flake.lock:

# Re-generate the flake.lock file
nix flake lock
# Update all dependencies and update the flake.lock file
nix flake update

azuline/nix-search-cli