# How to check for nixpkgs issues before updating

**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-check-for-nixpkgs-issues-before-updating/75128
**Category:** Guides
**Created:** [February 8, 2026, 10:34am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-check-for-nixpkgs-issues-before-updating/75128 "2026-02-08T10:34:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![BlastboomStrice](https://discourse.nixos.org/user_avatar/discourse.nixos.org/blastboomstrice/32/34636_2.png) [@BlastboomStrice](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/BlastboomStrice)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2026, 10:34am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-check-for-nixpkgs-issues-before-updating/75128/1 "2026-02-08T10:34:52Z")

</div>

> [!Warning]  
> This uses `gh` (but can theoretically be tweaked to use the github api instead with `curl` and `jq`). Also uses `sed` and `tr`.

## Background

For a long time I was updating my nixos-unstable system and hoped the update would go well or I would have wasted time and energy for nothing. (For a long time I didn’t even properly version my flake.lock…)  
Recently, I decided to make a simple bash function which will get called by an alias any time before I run update my flake (using another alias).

For this to work, I keep a list of `packages.txt` per host, which practically is everything in `environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [...];` copy-pasted into that list. I have also added some extra package names at the bottom (cuz for example some packages are installed by enabling services and thus declared elsewhere).

In the future I could maybe plug it to a unifiedpush server and have my server notify me for new issues I may be interested in or something.

## Function1 - main

The script:

- takes the `packages.txt` list
  - removes any white-space character
  - joins the packages in a single line

- feeds the list into `gh` which searches the nixpkgs repo and fetches issues that
  - are still open
  - are the 100 latest
  - are made in the last 30 days
  - contain these package names in their title (only)
  - are labeled with “0.kind: build failure”
  - are sorted by date-created  
I find this to be a somewhat good filter, because otherwise (especially with so many packages that I have) it’d fetch like half of the issues on the repo.

The `nix-issues()` function is this (the comments explain a lot):

> **nix-issues() - click to expand**
>
> ```bash
> # nix-issues
> # reads a file with a list of packages and fetches recent related issues from nixpkgs repo created in the last 30 days
> nix-issues() {
> # read from ~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/hosts/$(hostname)/packages.txt
> # -e flag per each replacement operation
> # "s/#.*$//"	- delete comments (starting with "#" and ending till the end of the line)
> # "s/\s*//g"	- delete whitespace characters
> # "/^\s*$/d"	- delete any line and any whitespace characters it has in it (though whitespace chars are already removed)
> # "s/^/\"/" - add " to the beginning of each line
> # "s/$/\" OR/g"	- replace the end of each line with " OR"
> # '\n' ' ' - replace each new line with a space (converts the list in to a single line)
> # "s/...$//"	- delete the last 3 chars of the line (deletes the trailing " OR")
> issueslist="$(sed -e "s/#.*$//" -e "s/\s*//g" -e "/^\s*$/d" -e "s/^/\"/" -e "s/$/\" OR/g" < ~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/hosts/"$(hostname)"/packages.txt | tr '\n' ' ' | sed "s/...$//")"
> 
> # limits search to:
> # issues
> # open issues
> # issues created in the last 30 days
> # issues that contain the search terms in title
> # sorts by newest created
> issueslist+="is:issue state:open created:>$(date --date="$(date) - 30 day" +%Y-%m-%d) in:title sort:created-desc"
> 
> # uses gh to list issues of nixpkgs repo on github issues
> # limits results to:
> # previous constraints
> # issues with the label "0.kind: build failure"
> # latest 100 that match
> gh issue list --repo https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs --search "$issueslist" --label="0.kind: build failure" --limit=100
> 
> # exit program
> exit 0
> 
> # Resources:
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1521462/looping-through-the-content-of-a-file-in-bash
> # https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/164826/date-command-iso-8601-option
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18180581/subtract-days-from-a-date-in-bash
> # https://linuxsimply.com/bash-scripting-tutorial/loop/while-loop/while-loop-one-line/
> # https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-issues-and-pull-requests
> # https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/getting-started-with-searching-on-github/sorting-search-results
> # https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/using-issues/filtering-and-searching-issues-and-pull-requests
> # https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/sed-command-in-linux-unix-with-examples/
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16414410/delete-empty-lines-using-sed
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7558557/how-to-remove-tabs-from-blank-lines-using-sed
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4181703/how-to-concatenate-string-variables-in-bash
> }
> 
> ```

## Function2 - relaxed

Because the previous script can be a bit too restrictive, I’ve made a “relaxed” version of it, which has to be manually called and compared to the previous one fetches issues that:

- are both open and closed
- are the 500 latest
- are made in the last 60 days
- contain these package names both in their title and body
- contain all labels

This is the `nix-issues-relaxed()` function:

> **nix-issues-relaxed() - click to expand**
>
> ```bash
> # nix-issues-relaxed
> # reads a file with a list of packages and fetches recent related issues from nixpkgs repo created in the last 30 days (more than the nix-issues alias)
> nix-issues-relaxed() {
> # read from ~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/hosts/$(hostname)/packages.txt
> # sed "1stPart/2ndPart/3rdPart/4thPart"
> # sed "s/old_word/new_word/n"	s: substitute n:parameters like d (delete), g (global), n: (nth occurance, replace with number)
> # -e flag per each replacement operation
> # "s/#.*$//"	- delete comments (starting with "#" and ending till the end of the line)
> # "s/\s*//g"	- delete whitespace characters
> # "s/^\s*$/d"	- delete any line and any whitespace characters it has in it (though whitespace chars are already removed)
> # "s/^/\"/" - add " to the beginning of each line
> # "s/$/\" OR/g"	- replace the end of each line with " OR"
> # tr '\n' ' '	- replace (truncate) each new line with a space (converts the list in to a single line)
> # "s/...$//"	- delete the last 3 chars of the line (deletes the trailing " OR")
> issueslist="$(sed -e "s/#.*$//" -e "s/\s*//g" -e "/^\s*$/d" -e "s/^/\"/" -e "s/$/\" OR/g" < ~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/hosts/"$(hostname)"/packages.txt | tr '\n' ' ' | sed "s/...$//")"
> 
> # limits search to:
> # issues
> # open and closed issues (hence state:closed)
> # issues created in the last 60 days (hence "- 60 day")
> # sorts by newest created
> # includes:
> # issues that contain the search terms both in title and body (hence no "in:title")
> issueslist+="is:issue state:open state:closed created:>$(date --date="$(date) - 60 day" +%Y-%m-%d) sort:created-desc"
> 
> # uses gh to list issues of nixpkgs repo on github issues
> # limits results to:
> # previous constraints
> # latest 500 that match (unlike the limit of 100 in nix-issues alias)
> # includes:
> # issues with any label (hence no "--label="0.kind: build failure"")
> gh issue list --repo https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs --search "$issueslist" --limit=500
> 
> # exit program
> exit 0
> 
> # Resources:
> # https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/sed-command-in-linux-unix-with-examples/
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1521462/looping-through-the-content-of-a-file-in-bash
> # https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/164826/date-command-iso-8601-option
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18180581/subtract-days-from-a-date-in-bash
> # https://linuxsimply.com/bash-scripting-tutorial/loop/while-loop/while-loop-one-line/
> # https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-issues-and-pull-requests
> # https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/getting-started-with-searching-on-github/sorting-search-results
> # https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/using-issues/filtering-and-searching-issues-and-pull-requests
> # https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/linux-unix/sed-command-in-linux-unix-with-examples/
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16414410/delete-empty-lines-using-sed
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7558557/how-to-remove-tabs-from-blank-lines-using-sed
> # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4181703/how-to-concatenate-string-variables-in-bash
> }
> 
> ```

## Bash script

These and other functions are then packaged in a bash script `bash-scripts.sh` which starts with:

> **bash-scripts.sh - BEGIN - click to expand**
>
> ```bash
> #!/usr/bin/env bash
> 
> # https://gist.github.com/akrasic/380bda362e0420be08709152c91ca1f9
> # set -e option instructs bash to immediately exit if any command [1] has a non-zero exit status
> # set -x enables a mode of the shell where all executed commands are printed to the terminal.
> # set -u affects variables. When set, a reference to any variable you haven't previously defined - with the exceptions of * and @ - is an error, and causes the program to immediately exit
> # set -o pipefail this setting prevents errors in a pipeline from being masked
> set -euo pipefail
> 
> ```

And ends with:

> **bash-scripts.sh - END - click to expand**
>
> ```bash
> # The script contains f1, f2 and f3 functions. The variable f_call is assigned the value of the first command-line argument ($1), which should be the name of the function to be called.
> # The shift command is used to shift the command-line arguments to the left, effectively discarding the first argument (the function name).
> # Finally, the specified function ($f_call) is called with any remaining command-line arguments (“$@”). This allows users to pass additional arguments to the chosen function.
> # https://linuxsimply.com/bash-scripting-tutorial/functions/call-function/
> f_call=$1; shift; $f_call "$@"
> 
> # If the above line doesn't call any command, the following text will be displayed
> echo "Wrong input!"
> 
> ```

This script is called by different aliases which call each appropriate function stated in an `aliases.nix` module of mine.

## Aliases

In my `aliases.nix` I have the following related aliases (the 3rd is a bonus, simply fetches details about a specific issues on the nixpkgs repo):

> **aliases - click to expand**
>
> ```nix
> #reads a file with a list of packages and fetches recent related issues from nixpkgs repo created in the last 30 days
> #calls nix-issues function inside ./bash-scripts.sh
> #uses gh
> nix-issues = "~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/modules/non-nix-scripts/bash-scripts.sh nix-issues";
> #reads a file with a list of packages and fetches recent related issues from nixpkgs repo created in the last 30 days (more than the nix-issues alias)
> #calls nix-issues function inside ./bash-scripts.sh
> #uses gh
> nix-issues-relaxed = "~/dotfiles/.config/nixos-config/modules/non-nix-scripts/bash-scripts.sh nix-issues-relaxed";
> #shows details of an issue from the nixpkgs repo
> # "s/[^0-9]//g" - removes any non-digit characters
> #uses gh
> nix-issues-view = "read -r -p \"Type the number of issue: \" issuenumber && issuenumber=\"$(echo \"$issuenumber\" | sed \"s/[^0-9]//g\")\" && gh issue view \"$issuenumber\" --repo https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs --comments && unset issuenumber";
> 
> ```

## Links

All these exist in my nixos git repo which has the dotfiles of my systems. You can them (and more) on my codeberg account:

- dotfiles/nixos-config repo: [https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles](https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles)
- `aliases.nix`: [https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.config/nixos-config/modules/nixos/aliases.nix](https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.config/nixos-config/modules/nixos/aliases.nix)
- `bash-scripts.sh`: [https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.config/nixos-config/modules/non-nix-scripts/bash-scripts.sh](https://codeberg.org/BlastboomStrice/dotfiles/src/branch/main/.config/nixos-config/modules/non-nix-scripts/bash-scripts.sh)

## Demo

When running

```console
$ nix-upgrades

```

or

```console
$ nix-updates

```

I get this dialog first:

 ![image](https://discourse.nixos.org/uploads/default/original/3X/f/3/f357eb6ee2b4edfcaf418d7f977adf36e5df7fd2.png)

After viewing the issues I press `q` and it waits for me to press any key to continue updating/upgrading the system:  
 ![image](https://discourse.nixos.org/uploads/default/original/3X/7/3/735d0d581a866ac1dbfd75bcb207558b6bdee923.png)