2023-04-17 Nix team meeting minutes #49

Development Nix
1

Attendees: @roberth @ericson2314 @fricklerhandwerk

Agenda

Notes

  • @Ericson2314: PR count is currently below 300 at last, somewhat good result
    • Though still would want it to be much lower
    • @fricklerhandwerk: PRs are not necessarily a meaningful metric, lots of noise in there
      • inbox zero may be desirable in general, but we don’t have any chance to brute force the problem in any case
      • we have to continue finding and addressing the underlying issues first

Topic proposals for 2023-05-27 workshop (10 min)

  • Background:
    • currently ~10 major contributors from all over the ecosystem
  • Possible topics:
    • Nix architecture
      • separating the Nix store
      • CLI stabilisation
      • compliance test suites
      • knowledge sharing
    • Nixpkgs architecture
      • package modules
      • nixpkgs command
    • Documentation (hackathon)
      • infrastructure topics
        • generated documentation
        • reference manuals
        • …
      • content issues
        • writing tutorials
        • …
    • NixOS
      • Make NIX_PATH optional
      • Managing state (e.g.)
      • rethinking nixos-rebuild
      • making NixOS more reusable
    • User Experience
      • with Elton Vecchietti, picking up from November
    • Ecosystem (Conway’s workshop)
      • interfaces and architecture
      • division of labor
      • community teams coordiation
      • funding
      • how to incorporate third-party improvements
  • Conclusions:

Work off assignments

Make `initLibStore` a viable alternative by roberth · Pull Request #7732 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • Merged
  • We can not be 100% sure beforehand whether slightly changing the order of things is fine, but that’s OK.
  • The only way to learn is by doing
  • Many things need this.
  • Right after a release (2.15) gets us plenty of time to find out

Backport `SourcePath` from the lazy-trees branch by edolstra · Pull Request #8172 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • Fixed conflicts
  • Needs some API docs / clarifications
  • How much does this overlap with the store layer FSAccessor?

doc rendering: add functions to scope explicitly by fricklerhandwerk · Pull Request #7378 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • rebased
  • set to auto-merge

remove incorrect reference to `NIX_PATH` documentation by fricklerhandwerk · Pull Request #7514 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

Trustless remote building for input-addressed drvs by Ericson2314 · Pull Request #3921 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • Will split out trust flags as separate PR.

  • Can include 4/5 tests from this PR!

  • @roberth feels more comfortable reviewing that part than the remote builder part

  • @ericson2314: new experimental feature name: daemon-trust-override?

manual: list experimental features · Issue #7368 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • closed as completed

Establish a process for dealing with breaking changes · Issue #7255 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

Document the concept of search paths in a central place · Issue #8228 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • opened as a result of discussing search path documentation

Introduce `StoreReferences` and `ContentAddressWithReferences` by Ericson2314 · Pull Request #3746 · NixOS/nix · GitHub

  • have to bring it up in the next team meeting to determine priorities
  • blocks RFC 92
  • also will mess up libgit work with merge conflicts