NixBox

A NixOS TUI package manager. Search a nixpkgs channel, pick a package, and NixBox writes it into your home-manager or NixOS config and runs the rebuild — without ever leaving the terminal.

What it does

• Live search against nix search --json over a configurable flake input (default nixpkgs).
• Maintains two managed files in your config directory — nixbox-home-packages.nix and nixbox-system-packages.nix — and owns them end-to-end. Your hand-written config is never touched outside of a single imports line.
• On install/uninstall it updates the managed file, makes sure it's imported by your home.nix / configuration.nix, then runs the appropriate rebuild and streams the output into the TUI.
• Works whether your home-manager is exposed as a standalone homeConfigurations.<user> flake output, or wired in as a NixOS module — NixBox auto-detects which one you have and picks the right rebuild command.
• Scans your existing config for externally-declared packages and lets you "migrate" them into the managed file with m (or M for all of them).
• Settings (channel, target, theme, paths) persist in ~/.config/nixbox/settings.json.

How it wires itself in

The first time you install or migrate a package, NixBox does three things automatically:

1. Writes the managed file (nixbox-home-packages.nix for home-manager, nixbox-system-packages.nix for NixOS).
2. Inserts ./nixbox-home-packages.nix (or …-system-…) into the imports = [ … ] list of your home.nix / configuration.nix. Existing imports-list style is preserved, and the insertion is idempotent.
3. Stages the managed file with git add -N if your config dir is a git work tree, so flakes (which ignore untracked files) can actually evaluate it.

If you want to override where NixBox looks for the "main" config file, set home_manager_main_file or nixos_main_file in ~/.config/nixbox/settings.json.

Inside the managed file, NixBox owns everything between # nixbox:packages:start and # nixbox:packages:end. Don't edit those by hand.

Install

cargo install nixbox

Or build from source:

devenv shell
cargo build --release

Run

nixbox          # if cargo-installed
devenv shell -- just run  # from a checkout

Development

The reproducible development environment is managed by devenv:

devenv shell  # Rust toolchain, Nix tooling, and just
just ci       # format, lint, and test the workspace
devenv test   # evaluate the environment and run just ci
devenv update # update pinned inputs

With direnv installed, run direnv allow once to activate the environment automatically.

Layout

Cargo workspace:

• crates/nixbox — binary entrypoint
• crates/nixbox-tui — ratatui app, search / installed / build views
• crates/nixbox-nix — nix search wrapper, managed-file writer, import inserter, rebuild runner
• crates/nixbox-config — persisted user settings (channel, target, theme, path overrides)

Keys