NixOS' package search does not show, when a package is broken

Borgvall · June 23, 2026, 2:44pm

NixOS’ package search does not show, when a package is broken. This bothers me and I can not find any reason, why it does not show this prominently.

withakay · June 23, 2026, 2:53pm

Assuming you mean NixOS Search, you can click on “Show more package details”, then click on your platform to see the latest hydra evals for the package.

For example go to https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=26.05&query=btop#show=btop and click on x86_64-linux

Does this do what you want?

waffle8946 · June 23, 2026, 2:57pm

github.com/NixOS/nixos-search

Clearly mark broken packages as such

opened 06:32AM - 22 Nov 23 UTC

l0b0

[haskellPackages.minesweeper](https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=23.05&sh…ow=haskellPackages.minesweeper&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=minesweeper) depends on [haskellPackages.glade](https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=23.05&show=haskellPackages.glade&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=glade), which is marked as broken. Unfortunately, neither page indicates this, making for a suboptimal user experience. Ideally it should also be possible to filter on this field, since according to the community there is no way to find broken/non-broken packages in less than _several minutes_ running a complex shell command.

github.com/NixOS/nixos-search

Show broken flag

opened 09:47AM - 25 Nov 24 UTC

maralorn

I think we should consider the broken flag in the search index. One motivation …is, that currently the search shows all haskellPackages, but 2/3 of them are broken. That clutters the search results and it is super frustrating for users when they get advertised a package to then realize later, that it does not work. The imo best suggestion made at #ZurichZHF would be to by default filter out packages marked broken, but show something like "n currently broken packages hidden" then you get to toggle on showing them and they should be somehow marked. Advanced features would be * "broken since" * "build error leading to disabling" * "link to a Guide how to fix the package"

Borgvall · June 23, 2026, 3:05pm

@withakay No it does not show, if a package is marked as broken. E. g. Childishly simple. No strain on the contrary, they like it. It's. does not indicate clearly the broken mark. The only indication is, that the last build was quite a while ago.

@waffle8946 Ok, so this is a known issue. Unfortunately no one seems to work on it.

withakay · June 23, 2026, 3:24pm

hmmmm… I see you mean broken the meta attribute.

Looking at nixpkgs documentation for broken, I’m actually surprised it shows up on the search at all since that link says that

broken

If set to true, the package is marked as “broken”, meaning that it won’t show up
in search.nixos.org, and cannot be built or installed unless explicitly allowed.
Such unconditionally-broken packages should be removed from Nixpkgs eventually
unless they are fixed.

Does anyone know if this is a documentation error in nixpkgs or a filtering error in nixos-search?

Borgvall · June 23, 2026, 3:34pm

Yes, there is definitely a mismatch between the documentation and the behavior.

withakay · June 23, 2026, 4:28pm

Actually though, if you follow your link, it says right at the top:

This job is not a member of the latest evaluation of its jobset. This means it was removed or had an evaluation error.

Zellrus · June 24, 2026, 6:00am

One workaround is to use third-party package search websites. For example, Nix Software shows whether a package is marked as broken, whether it is currently supported, and also lists any known vulnerabilities that have been found.