Can I run nix-instantiate --eval --strict on my configuration.nix?

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4

To actually reproduce what you’ve seen in video, you should do

$ nix-instantiate --strict --json --eval -E '
import ./configuration.nix  {
  config = {};
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
  lib = import <nixpkgs/lib>;
}
'

However, as others suggested, this is only view of a single module. If you would ever want the --json --strict view of all modules combined together with your system definition, then I would disappoint you - it is not possible to do with nix-instantiate. There are a few infinite recursions and aborts, which prevent this:

nix-instantiate --strict --json --eval -E '
import <nixpkgs/nixos> {
  configuration = import ./configuration.nix;
}
'
....
/nix/store/jmjklnnv5iverror: Please be informed that this pseudo-package is not the only part of
Nixpkgs that fails to evaluate. You should not evaluate entire Nixpkgs
without some special measures to handle failing packages, like those taken
by Hydra.

ba3g288ppz4z25dqgrw45-vmware-guest.nix","/nix/store/yamzdblrb2qnq4ad95c18kixkxsajvqp-xen-dom0.nix","/nix/store/760irz3939zqr309d63r6x51q0icafcp-xe-guest-utilities.nix"],"extraModules":[],"modules":["/nix/store/845sqqbpwdkyhdcxjbln1pkzwzc91wzc-station.nix"],
"pkgs":{"AAAAAASomeThingsFailToEvaluate":}}}}}
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