How to mirror a flake locally?

Help
1

Hi, I’m trying to get the Zen-browser flake to work locally. By this I mean that I want to copy the contents of the flake in my nixos-config directory and refer to it in main flake.
I have the following folder tree:

pkgs
  zen
    flake.nix
    zen.desktop
flake.nix
flake.lock

Now i my main flake I do:

inputs = {
...
zen-browser = {
      url = "path:./pkgs/zen/";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};
...
}

but when I do rebuild switch I get this error:

error: builder for '/nix/store/07q96sqijbvcw1qpcayilhcamfypz72c-zen-browser-1.0.1-a.16.drv' failed with exit code 1;
       last 2 log lines:
       > Running phase: installPhase
       > install: cannot stat '/nix/store/d89x2f4s2zyg3za4y1h0q2ivhdjfp1dv-451s1z9y3c3jmzck61k0hbchbmvqhm10-source/zen.desktop': No such file or directory

When I just go in /pkgs/zen and do nix build .#specific it does work without issues.
Is my approach to this flawed?

2

Relative paths in flake inputs (subflakes) are just overall broken, don’t use them.
Use an absolute path if you must.

3

Fair enough, I was also thinking about just making a derivation of this, instead of a (sub)flake. Would that be better?

4

Seems easier and more effective, especially since the file is already within your flake.
But if you’re using git for the outer flake ensure to git-add the files.

1 Like
5

It took me a bit, but indeed, a derivation was the way to go. Thanks!