Packages

Similar to modules, the pkgs directory mirrors the upstream nixpkgs/pkgs, and for the same reason; if you ever want to upstream your package, it's as simple as dropping it into the nixpkgs/pkgs directory.

The only minor difference is that, instead of adding the callPackage call to all-packages.nix, you just add it the the default.nix in this directory, which is defined as a simple overlay.

All the packages are exported via packages.<system>.<pkg-name>, for all the supported systems listed in the package's meta.platforms attribute.

And, as usual, every package in the overlay is also available to any NixOS host.

Example

pkgs/development/libraries/libinih/default.nix:

{ stdenv, meson, ninja, lib, srcs, ... }:
let inherit (srcs) libinih; in
stdenv.mkDerivation {
  pname = "libinih";

  # version will resolve to 53, as specified in the final example below
  inherit (libinih) version;

  src = libinih;

  buildInputs = [ meson ninja ];

  # ...
}

pkgs/default.nix:

final: prev: {
  libinih = prev.callPackage ./development/libraries/libinih { };
}

pkgs/flake.nix:

{
  description = "Package sources";

  inputs = {
    libinih.url = "github:benhoyt/inih/r53";
    libinih.flake = false;
  };
}