Getting started with Determinate

Determinate is an all-in-one Nix toolchain that includes:

• Determinate Nix, a validated and secure distribution of Nix from Determinate Systems that’s configured to be used with…
• FlakeHub, a platform for publishing and discovering Nix flakes, with features like private flakes and FlakeHub Cache.

You can install Determinate in a variety of platform-specific ways.

Platform support

Determinate is supported on these platforms:

Installing Determinate

This table shows you how you should install Determinate Nix depending on your situation:

Using Determinate Nix Installer

If you use…

• macOS (not nix-darwin) or
• Linux (not NixOS)

…you can install Determinate using the Determinate Nix Installer with the --determinate flag:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | \
  sh -s -- install --determinate

Using the determinate flake

If you use nix-darwin or NixOS you can install Determinate using the determinate flake. To add the flake as a flake input:

{
  inputs.determinate.url = "https://flakehub.com/f/DeterminateSystems/determinate/0.1";
}

NixOS

If you’re a NixOS user, you can quickly set up Determinate Nix using the nixosModules.default module output from the determinate flake. Here’s an example NixOS configuration:

{
  inputs.determinate.url = "https://flakehub.com/f/DeterminateSystems/determinate/0.1";
  inputs.nixpkgs.url = "https://flakehub.com/f/NixOS/nixpkgs/0.2405.0";
 
  outputs = { determinate, nixpkgs, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.my-workstation = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [
        # Load the Determinate module
        determinate.nixosModules.default
      ];
    };
  };
}

nix-darwin

If you’re a nix-darwin user on macOS, you can quickly set up Determinate using the darwinModules.default module output from the determinate flake. Here’s an example nix-darwin configuration:

{
  inputs.determinate.url = "https://flakehub.com/f/DeterminateSystems/determinate/0.1";
  inputs.nix-darwin.url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin";
 
  outputs = { determinate, nix-darwin, ... }: {
    darwinConfigurations.my-workstation-aarch64-darwin = nix-darwin.lib.darwinSystem {
      system = "aarch64-darwin";
      modules = [
        # Load the Determinate module
        determinate.darwinModules.default
      ];
    };
  };
}

Determinate.pkg

You can install Determinate on macOS using Determinate Systems’ provided .pkg file. You can download and run it by clicking here.

Download and run the latest Determinate package from install.determinate.systems.

The Determinate package is fully signed and notarized. Re-running the installer is safe and upgrades Determinate in place.

Log in to FlakeHub

Once you’re set up with Determinate Nix, you can log in to FlakeHub using Determinate Nixd:

determinate-nixd login

By default, the login command triggers a FlakeHub login flow that includes generating a JSON Web Token (JWT) in the FlakeHub UI and copy-pasting it into your terminal. Once logged in, you can use private flakes and FlakeHub Cache.

You can now download private flakes and artifacts from your private binary cache.