nix-community/nix-index

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_license

Adoption not part of the score

1350 stars · 78 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

nix-index is a Rust CLI tool that builds a files database for nixpkgs by indexing built derivations from binary caches. Its companion command nix-locate quickly finds which nix package provides a specific file, and it can replace the shell's command-not-found handler.

Use cases

• find which nix package provides a given file
• look up the package containing bin/hello in nixpkgs
• replace command-not-found to suggest nix packages for missing commands
• index built derivations from nix binary caches locally
• use a pre-generated nixpkgs files database via nix-index-database

When to choose

• you use Nix/NixOS and need to find which package contains a file
• you want a shell command-not-found that suggests nix packages
• you want to search nixpkgs by file path rather than package name

When to avoid

• you don't use the Nix package manager
• you need to search packages by metadata rather than contained files

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

search-engine cli developer-tools developer-tools cli rust nix nixpkgs package-search file-database command-not-found command-line package-management linux macos

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="nix-community/nix-index")