# cachix/devenv

Fast, Declarative, Reproducible, and Composable Developer Environments using Nix

Repository: https://github.com/cachix/devenv
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/devenv
Homepage: https://devenv.sh
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: developer-tools, devenv, nix
Last push: 2026-08-26T22:48:35+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 97, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1411, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 20, "gap_med": 7.5, "n_releases_24m": 35}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 7408, forks 549 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:59.648760+00:00)

## What it is
devenv is a Rust CLI tool that lets developers declare their entire development environment—packages, language toolchains, services, tasks, and processes—in a devenv.nix file built on Nix. It delivers fast incremental evaluation, background shell rebuilding, a terminal UI, a process manager with dependency ordering, and the same environment for local work and CI.

## Use cases
- set up a reproducible development environment that works identically on mac and linux
- run postgres, redis, and other services locally without docker compose files
- pin exact compiler and toolchain versions per project without polluting the global system
- give every teammate and CI the same environment from one committed config file
- onboard new developers with a single command that builds the whole stack
- run multiple dev processes with dependency ordering and readiness probes
- declare and load secrets from different providers without committing them

## When to choose
- your team needs identical, reproducible environments across laptops and CI and is willing to adopt Nix under the hood
- you want declaratively managed services like PostgreSQL or Redis with a built-in process manager instead of hand-written scripts or containers
- you juggle many projects with conflicting language versions and want per-project, cached toolchains
- you want a friendlier interface to Nix with LSP support, instant caching, and shell reloading

## When to avoid
- your team is not prepared to install Nix or learn its ecosystem, since devenv depends on it entirely
- your environment is already fully served by Docker Compose or dev containers and the team prefers that workflow
- you need native Windows support outside WSL2
- you want zero config: devenv is declarative config-first, so fully ad hoc one-off setups are better served by plain shell scripts

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: configuration-management, developer-tools, cli, package-manager
- domain: developer-tools
- platform: windows, cli
- tags: nix, declarative-environments, reproducible-builds, devshell, process-manager, task-runner, terminal-ui, secrets, nixpkgs, command-line, devops, linux, macos, docker

## Member repositories
- cachix/devenv (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.648760+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:38:02.063834+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cachix/devenv (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:59.648760+00:00, sha 5f6d28f1bed7)
  - homepage: https://devenv.sh (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:24.140906+00:00, sha 4c68dbefd35b)
  - site_page: https://devenv.sh/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:24.150140+00:00, sha d498eb84b652)
  - site_page: https://devenv.sh/integrations/secretspec (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:24.151967+00:00, sha 17e2e3d93c68)
  - site_page: https://devenv.sh/integrations/github-actions (fetched 2026-08-29T08:33:24.153729+00:00, sha e037e6cebba5)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.