What Gets Built

When processing a commit, NixCI discovers which flake outputs exist and creates a build job for each. This page explains which outputs get built.

For an overview of how NixCI processes commits, see How It Works .

NixCI builds the following flake outputs, in this order:

1. devShell
2. devShells
3. formatter
4. packages
5. checks

You can control which systems and outputs get excluded in your NixCI configuration .

Given a flake with these outputs for x86_64-linux :

{
  devShell.x86_64-linux = ...;
  devShells.x86_64-linux.default = ...;
  formatter.x86_64-linux = ...;
  packages.x86_64-linux.default = ...;
  packages.x86_64-linux.my-app = ...;
  checks.x86_64-linux.lint = ...;
  checks.x86_64-linux.tests = ...;
}

NixCI will create these build runs:

1. devShell.x86_64-linux
2. devShells.x86_64-linux.default
3. formatter.x86_64-linux
4. packages.x86_64-linux.default
5. packages.x86_64-linux.my-app
6. checks.x86_64-linux.lint
7. checks.x86_64-linux.tests

NixCI does not build nixosConfigurations directly because the architecture cannot be determined automatically. To build a NixOS configuration, expose it as a check:

checks.x86_64-linux.my-machine =
  nixosConfigurations.my-machine.config.system.build.toplevel;

In addition to build jobs, NixCI can run impure tests and continuous deployment jobs. These are configured separately and run after builds complete.