shmish111/spago2nix

Generate a derivation of Spago dependencies, and use them to install them into the directory structure used by Spago.

Spago2Nix

Generate a derivation of Spago dependencies, and use them to install them into the directory structure used by Spago.

Installation

For now, simply clone this repo and run npm link. Requires a Node runtime and nix-prefetch-git.

Remember to set npm prefix to something like ~/.npm.

Usage

First, generate the spago-packages.nix:

$ spago2nix generate
getting packages..
got 65 packages from Spago list-packages.
# ...
wrote spago-packages.nix

Then install these, optionally with more jobs provided to Nix:

$ spago2nix install -j 100
/nix/store/...-install-spago-style
installing dependencies...
# ...
done.
Wrote install script to .spago2nix/install

Then build the project:

$ spago2nix build
/nix/store/...-build-spago-style
building project...
done.
Wrote build script to .spago2nix/build

When using in your own Nix derivation, the best practice is calling generated scripts from spago-packages.nix:

{ pkgs, stdenv }:

let 
  spagoPkgs = import ./spago-packages.nix { inherit pkgs; };
in
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
  # < ... >
  buildPhase = 
  '' 
    ${spagoPkgs.installSpagoStyle} # == spago2nix install
    ${spagoPkgs.buildSpagoStyle}   # == spago2nix build
  '';
  # < ... >
}

Further Reading

Here is a blog post I did about this project: https://github.com/justinwoo/my-blog-posts/blob/master/posts/2019-06-22-spago2nix-why-and-how.md

Troubleshooting

I get MissingRevOrRepoResult on a package with branch name as a version

Nix gives out the specific constant SHA256 hash for broken Git fetches, so the error is thrown. One of the causes for a broken fetch is wrong checkout revision. Nix supports fetches by commit hash and tags out of the box, but fails at plain branch names.

You can use more verbose reference refs/heads/branch-name at packages.dhall before generating a .nix file. However, the branch name usage is discouraged in Spago (refer to Note here), it's better using a particular commit hash.