IN_NIX_SHELL env-variable in 'nix shell' versus 'nix-shell'

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1

Hi,

the starship command prompt uses the ‘IN_NIX_SHELL’ variable to show when the shell is a nix-shell. However, when using the new ‘nix shell’ command, it seems that the ‘IN_NIX_SHELL’ environment variable is not being set.

Is there a way to tell when one is in a ‘nix shell’ environment?

Thanks

2

I found this PR to set IN_NIX_SHELL also for nix shell but it looks like it was rejected.

One of the comments suggests looking for a nix store entry in PATH to determine if you are using nix shell.

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3

Thanks, so I guess starship needs to implement a workaround. For now I will just set SHLVL in starship.

4

In case somebody hitting this, there’s a hack implemented in starship to prompt ‘nix shell’
https://github.com/starship/starship/pull/4724
Just need to set heuristic = true under nix_shell

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