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# Nixtamal | Nixtamal
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â¹âââ¹â± â¹ â¹ â¹â¹â¹ â¹â¹â¹ââ Home Install Manpage Changelog Roadmap Cookbook Real-world showcase Community FAQs Funding Nixtamal Fulfilling input pinning for Nixâââpinning in ways flakes never can Table of Contents Keys features Showcase Comparison Design constraints Technical choices Ready to try & install? Keys features Automate the manual work of input pinning for dependency management Allow easy ways to lock & refresh those inputs Declarative KDL manifest file over imperative CLI flags diff/grep-friendly lockfile Host, forge, VCS -agnostic Choose eval time fetchers (builtins) or build time fetchers (Nixpkgs, default)âââwhich opens up fetching now-supported Darcs , Pijul , & Fossil Supports mirrors Override hash algorithm on a per-project & per-input basisâââincluding BLAKE3 support [ * ] Custom freshness commands No experimental Nix features required [ * ] Opting in requires enabling blake3-hashes experimental feature which requires Nix 2.31+. Showcase Set up Tweak the manifest with your $EDITOR version "1.0.0" // By default in this project, use experimental BLAKE3 algorithm for // quicker, safer hashing default-hash-algorithm BLAKE3 // Define & even reuse patches patches { // Unique name for referencing in manifest inputs chroma-0.22.0 "https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/478519.patch" { // Override the project default hash algorithm hash algorithm= SHA-512 expected= "1mdsfx204bgia572fydnmjy78dkybbcnjx20qn9l4q65r29ry28c" } } // Define inputs inputs { // Unique name for referencing in Nix nixpkgs { // Fetch an archive with string templating support archive { url "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/{{fresh_value}}.tar.gz" } hash algorithm= SHA-256 // Apply patches to the source now while awaiting review patches chroma-0.22.0 // cURL an Atom feed for updates, stat a directory, whatever you // need so long as it returns a string, you can use it! // This also means you can prevent downloading massive files by // deciding yourself what âfreshâ means to you. fresh-cmd { $ git ls-remote --branches "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs.git" --refs nixpkgs-unstable | cut -f1 } } nixtamal { // Use VCSs not supported by `builtins` darcs { repository "https://darcs.toastal.in.th/nixtamal/stable" // fallback to mirrors when a host is down mirrors "https://smeder.ee/~toastal/nixtamal.darcs" } fresh-cmd { $ curl -sL "https://darcs.toastal.in.th/nixtamal/stable/_darcs/weak_hash" } } // Even static JSON files can be inputs mozilla-tls { file { url "https://ssl-config.mozilla.org/guidelines/{{fresh_value}}.json" mirrors "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/ssl-config-generator/refs/tags/v{{fresh_value}}/src/static/guidelines/{{fresh_value}}.json" } // Scrape a webpage for the latest version fresh-cmd { $ curl -sL "https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS" | htmlq -t "table.wikitable:last-of-type > tbody > tr:nth-child(2) > td:first-child" } } // Download & pin a model from Hugging Face, then can be used like with // `specialArgs = { inherit inputs; }`: // // services.llama-cpp = { // enable = true; // model = "${inputs.Qwen2_5-Coder-7B-Instruct}"; // } Qwen2_5-Coder-7B-Instruct { file { url "https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct-GGUF/resolve/{{fresh_value}}/qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct-q5_k_m.gguf" } fresh-cmd { $ curl -fsL "https://huggingface.co/api/models/Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct-GGUF/commits/main?path=qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct-q5_k_m.gguf" | jq -r ".[0].id" } } } Lock or refresh your new inputs Using in a project let # Import the inputs attrset from the $NIXTAMAL_DIRECTORY (default: # nix/tamal), which takes a configuration attrset: # # { # system ? builtins.currentSystem, # nixpkgs ? null, # bootstrap-nixpkgs-lock-namee ? null, # }: # # system : string # The system architecture (useful for pure evaluation) # bootstrap-nixpkgs : derivation # A Nixpkgs source for bootstrapping. This is useful if using Nixtamal # from inside another another pinning tool, OR, if you are willing to # trade off a bit of purity at the fetcher level for better performance # / saving data, you can pass { bootstrap-nixpkgs = â®nixpkgsâ¯; } from the # host system as the systemâs Nixpkgs fetchers are likely stable enough # for your bootstrapping needs (& we feature check some of the API). # bootstrap-nixpkgs-lock-name : string # Key name from inputs to use as the bootstrapping Nixpkgs if you # want/need inputs.nixpkgs to point to something else. inputs = import ./nix/tamal { }; pkgs = import inputs . nixpkgs { overlay = [ # exposes the âdag-yoâ package ( import " ${ inputs . my-cool-package } /nix/overlay" ) ]; }; in pkgs . dag-yo # puntedâ¼ Comparison Nix pinning tool comparisons Pinning tool Nixtamal Nix channels Nix flakes npins niv Yae Same state per machine yes only if manually pinning yes yes yes yes Per-project support yes no yes yes yes yes Versioned schemas yes â no yes yes no Requires experimental Nix features no no yes no no no Splits lockfile vs. manifest duties yes (manifest.kdl) no yes (flake.nix) no no no Requires Nixpkgs used for bootstrapping & some features require it, but possible with fetch-time=eval no no no no no Fetch CVS no [ 2 ] no no no no no Fetch Darcs yes no no no no no Fetch Fossil yes no no no no no Fetch Git yes no yes yes yes yes Fetch GNU Bazaar no [ 1 ] no no no no no Fetch Mercurial no [ 2 ] no yes no no no Fetch Pijul yes no no no no no Fetch Subversion no [ 2 ] no no no no no Fetch torrent no [ 1 ] no no no no no Fetch URL s yes yes yes yes yes yes User-written freshness logic fresh-cmd no no no no no Version constraints Gate with fresh-cmd or Jingoo templating ( DIY ) no no Semver on some input kinds no Git tag predicate Configure hash algorithm yes, per-project + per-input & BLAKE3 support no no no no no Mirror support yes, on supported kinds no no no no no Patch support yes, declarative no must apply manually or pull in a dependency to handle must apply manually must apply manually must apply manually Forge-specific URL schemes or semantics no no yes yes yes, & defaults to proprietary MS GitHub no Freeze inputs for convenience yes no no yes no no Bin license GPL-3.0-or-later LGPL-2.1-or-later LGPL-2.1-or-later EUPL-1.2 MIT GPL-3.0 Main implementation language OCaml C++ C++ Rust Haskell Go Manifest file format KDL â Nix (special constraints) â â â Lockfile file format JSON â JSON JSON JSON JSON [ 1 ] ( 1 , 2 ) No prefetcher exists [ 2 ] ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) Bare-bones prefetchers:
While these could be supported like fetchurl does, VCS s can & should provide structured output (currently supported prefetchers all output JSON ). Design constraints All inputs are named and listed up front Inputs are written declaratively in a manifest file Lockfiles are machine-written, not hand-edited configuration VCS s not in the builtins must be supported No forge-specific rules Users define how freshness is checked Technical choices After bootstrapping with Nixpkgs, use its fetchers as builtins fetchers are (by design) feature-poor Uses nix-prefetch-scripts from Nixpkgs input value fetching Allows side-by-side use with other pinning tools during transition Nixtamal is dog-fooded on itself Ready to try & install? Install Nixtamal now ! Note Official repositories should be at toastal.in.th domains if unsure Site made with Nix ( dep management), Nickel ( config ), Soupault ( SSG ), Docutils ( rST rendering), mandoc (manpage conversion), & sugilite256 (color scheme). © 2025â2026 toastal .
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