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determinatesystems

GitHub Action

The Determinate Nix Installer

v9

The Determinate Nix Installer

determinatesystems

The Determinate Nix Installer

Install Nix with the Determinate Nix Installer. See: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer

Installation

Copy and paste the following snippet into your .yml file.

 
              
- name: The Determinate Nix Installer

              
  uses: DeterminateSystems/nix-installer-action@v9
Learn more about this action in DeterminateSystems/nix-installer-action

Choose a version

The Determinate Nix Installer Action

Based on the Determinate Nix Installer, responsible for over tens of thousands of Nix installs daily. The fast, friendly, and reliable GitHub Action to install Nix with Flakes.

Supports

  • ✅ Accelerated KVM on open source projects and larger runners. See GitHub's announcement for more info.
  • ✅ Linux, x86_64, aarch64, and i686
  • ✅ macOS, x86_64 and aarch64
  • ✅ WSL2, x86_64 and aarch64
  • ✅ Containers
  • ✅ Valve's SteamOS
  • ✅ GitHub Enterprise Server
  • ✅ GitHub Hosted, self-hosted, and long running Actions Runners

Usage

on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  lints:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: DeterminateSystems/nix-installer-action@main
      - run: nix build .

With FlakeHub

To fetch private flakes from FlakeHub, update the permissions block and pass flakehub: true:

on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  lints:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      id-token: "write"
      contents: "read"
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: DeterminateSystems/nix-installer-action@main
        with:
          flakehub: true
      - run: nix build .

See .github/workflows/ci.yml for a full example.

Advanced Usage

  • If KVM is available, the installer sets up KVM so that Nix can use it ,and exports the DETERMINATE_NIX_KVM environment variable set to 1. If KVM is not available, DETERMINATE_NIX_KVM is set to 0. This can be used in combination with GitHub Actions' if syntax for turning on and off steps.

Installation Differences

Differing from the upstream Nix installer scripts:

  • In nix.conf:
    • the nix-command and flakes features are enabled
    • bash-prompt-prefix is set
    • auto-optimise-store is set to true (On Linux only)
    • extra-nix-path is set to nixpkgs=flake:nixpkgs
    • max-jobs is set to auto
  • KVM is enabled by default.
  • an installation receipt (for uninstalling) is stored at /nix/receipt.json as well as a copy of the install binary at /nix/nix-installer
  • nix-channel --update is not run, ~/.nix-channels is not provisioned
  • ssl-cert-file is set in /etc/nix/nix.conf if the ssl-cert-file argument is used.

Configuration

Parameter Description Type Default
backtrace The setting for RUST_BACKTRACE string
extra-args Extra arguments to pass to the planner (prefer using structured with: arguments unless using a custom planner!) string
extra-conf Extra configuration lines for /etc/nix/nix.conf (includes access-tokens with secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN automatically if github-token is set) string
flakehub Log in to FlakeHub to pull private flakes using the GitHub Actions JSON Web Token (JWT), which is bound to the api.flakehub.com audience. Boolean false
force-docker-shim Force the use of Docker as a process supervisor. This setting is automatically enabled when necessary. Boolean false
github-token A GitHub token for making authenticated requests (which have a higher rate-limit quota than unauthenticated requests) string ${{ github.token }}
github-server-url The URL for the GitHub server, to use with the github-token token. Defaults to the current GitHub server, supporting GitHub Enterprise Server automatically. Only change this value if the provided github-token is for a different GitHub server than the current server. string ${{ github.server }}
init The init system to configure (requires planner: linux-multi) enum (none or systemd)
kvm Automatically configure the GitHub Actions Runner for NixOS test support, if the host supports it. Boolean true
local-root A local nix-installer binary root. Overrides the nix-installer-url setting (a nix-installer.sh should exist, binaries should be named nix-installer-$ARCH, eg. nix-installer-x86_64-linux). Boolean false
log-directives A list of tracing directives, comma separated with -s replaced with _ (eg. nix_installer=trace) string
logger The logger to use during installation enum (pretty, json, full, compact)
mac-case-sensitive Use a case-sensitive volume (planner: macos only) Boolean false
mac-encrypt Force encryption on the volume (planner: macos only) Boolean false
mac-root-disk The root disk of the target (planner: macos only) string
mac-volume-label The label for the created APFS volume (planner: macos only) string
modify-profile Modify the user profile to automatically load Nix Boolean false
nix-build-group-id The Nix build group GID integer
nix-build-group-name The Nix build group name string
nix-build-user-base The Nix build user base UID (ascending) integer
nix-build-user-count The number of build users to create integer 32
nix-build-user-prefix The Nix build user prefix (user numbers will be postfixed) string
nix-installer-branch The branch of nix-installer to use (conflicts with the nix-installer-tag, nix-installer-revision, and nix-installer-branch) string
nix-installer-pr The pull request of nix-installer to use (conflicts with nix-installer-tag, nix-installer-revision, and nix-installer-branch) integer
nix-installer-revision The revision of nix-installer to use (conflicts with nix-installer-tag, nix-installer-branch, and nix-installer-pr) string
nix-installer-tag The tag of nix-installer to use (conflicts with nix-installer-revision, nix-installer-branch, nix-installer-pr) string
nix-installer-url A URL pointing to a nix-installer.sh script URL https://install.determinate.systems/nix
nix-package-url The Nix package URL URL
planner The installation planner to use enum (linux or macos)
reinstall Force a reinstall if an existing installation is detected (consider backing up /nix/store) Boolean false
start-daemon If the daemon should be started, requires planner: linux-multi Boolean false
trust-runner-user Whether to make the runner user trusted by the Nix daemon Boolean true
diagnostic-endpoint Diagnostic endpoint url where the installer sends install diagnostic reports to, to disable set this to an empty string string https://install.determinate.systems/nix/diagnostic
proxy The proxy to use (if any), valid proxy bases are https://$URL, http://$URL and socks5://$URL string
ssl-cert-file An SSL cert to use (if any), used for fetching Nix and sets NIX_SSL_CERT_FILE for Nix string