Slightly off topic, but Claude Code (and likely other models/harnesses) are incredibly effective at Nix. It can trivially self-verify, without side effects, which is a perfect match for an LLM.

If you've ever been put off by the difficulty of the language, it's worth checking it out again with AI assistance.

Absolutely. Running NixOS is a wonderful experience for this reason. NixOS + LLMs make it a breeze to make changes to your system, install and configure new software, and debug issues. Having every aspect of your system defined in a git repo is the perfect fit for agent harnesses.

I'll admit, even with LLMs to help, the Nix language and NixOS did have a rather steep learning curve, because it's quite different from anything I'd experienced before. But after getting the hang of it, I can't imagine going back to a "normal" OS and I'm very happy I put in the time to get over the initial friction.

I got curious one Saturday and ported our monorepo to use Nix for build and test and release. It was a very pleasant process. I had to put aside to tackle more pressing things but I'm all in on using Nix in that capacity.

Agreed, Claude has helped a lot with this project, and being able to iterate without side effects for system configuration changes is really a game changer for agents.

I also love how with the right system prompt they can pull in tooling for what they currently need via a nix shell

I've one-shotted custom distributions built with Nix using AI. It's crazy how well AI and Nix fit together.