Closing the Nix Gap: From Environments to Packaged Applications for Rust
7 comments
·August 22, 2025pxc
I have been doing this aspect manually, sometimes adding a flake.nix or using Devenv with flake.nix instead of devenv.nix.
If this can work well generally, it's a really slick integration. I'm really impressed with Devenv's velocity and usefulness overall.
If you haven't checked devenv out yet, you definitely should. Don't be intimidated by the breadth of the featureset, either! It's really easy to use just the bits you're interested in and grow your usage (or not) organically.
ewuhic
Does it cache dependency crates to nix store? Does it result to speed-up in builds?
domenkozar
Yes, it does vendor all the crates to Nix store.
It results into speed up in a way that if your application doesn't change, you'll just get the binary package.
That's why the two interfaces are exposed: one for development feedback cycle and one for distribution.
silicon_laser
how does it compare with the devbox project
tadfisher
This post is talking about building your project with Nix, and only tangentially about dev environments à la devbox.
domenkozar
We're aiming to take Nix to its most simple form, while devbox uses json for configuration.
Think of devenv as systemd of developer environments.
I wish I knew whether Devenv has a conflict of interest with the Nix project. On /r/NixOS on Reddit, some of the people involved in the project just spam submissions related to Devenv instead of helping the community. One instance: https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/194a4ln/comment/lnep...