Company
Date Published
March 29, 2024
Author
Colton Donnelly
Word count
722
Language
English
Hacker News points
2

Summary

Today, Replit has released the first version of rippkgs, a CLI utility for indexing and searching Nix expressions, designed to improve search performance and accuracy for its users. The motivation behind rippkgs is to provide better tools for users who are not familiar with Nix, as existing solutions such as nix-env, nix search, and search.nixos.org have limitations that hinder their effectiveness. To achieve this, rippkgs was created with a focus on speed and correctness, using an index database generated by its sibling CLI, rippkgs-index. The tool allows users to quickly search the available Nix expressions, providing accurate results without the need for manual evaluation of attributes, and can be used in conjunction with Replit's command-not-found handler to provide better information about installed packages.