Niv is a tool designed for managing dependencies in Nix projects. It simplifies adding, updating, and removing package sources via a single nix/sources.json file, improving reproducibility and version control in Nix-based workflows. niv simplifies adding and updating dependencies in Nix projects. It uses a single file, nix/sources.json, where it stores the data necessary for fetching and updating the packages. Nix is a very powerful tool for building code and setting up environments. niv complements it by making it easy to describe and update remote dependencies (URLs, GitHub repos, etc). It is a simple, practical alternative to Nix flakes. The add command will infer information about the package being added, when possible. This works very well for GitHub repositories. Run this command to add jq to your project.
Features
- Adds a package source to nix/sources.json with niv add
- Updates one or all sources with niv update
- Removes sources via niv drop
- Bootstraps a project with niv init generating sources files
- Displays package metadata with niv show
- Useful for pinning and tracking dependencies in Nix workflows
Project Samples
