nay

An interactive NixOS package installer inspired by Arch Linux's yay. Nay helps you search, preview, install, and remove NixOS packages with ease, automatically managing them in your configuration.nix.

Features

• Interactive package search and selection
• Exact match detection
• Try packages in a temporary shell before installing
• Interactive package removal using fuzzy search
• Automatic configuration file updates
• System rebuild automation
• Configurable configuration file path

Installation

Add nay to your NixOS configuration using Flakes:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    nay.url = "github:christhepanda28/nay";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, nay, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.your-hostname = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      # ...
      modules = [
        # ...
        nay.nixosModules.default
        {
          programs.nay = {
            enable = true;
            # Optional: specify a custom configuration file path
            # configPath = "/path/to/your/configuration.nix";
          };
        }
      ];
    };
  };
}

Configuration

Nay can be configured through NixOS module options:

• programs.nay.enable: Enable/disable nay (boolean)
• programs.nay.configPath: Path to your NixOS configuration file containing environment.systemPackages (default: "/etc/nixos/configuration.nix")

Usage

Installing Packages

Search and install packages:

nay install package-name
# or simply
nay package-name

Or start an interactive search:

nay install
# or simply
nay

When a package is found, you can:

• Install it permanently (adds to your configuration file and rebuilds)
• Try it in a temporary shell

Removing Packages

To remove a package:

nay remove

This will:

1. Show an interactive fuzzy-search list of installed packages
2. Let you select a package to remove
3. Remove it from your configuration and rebuild the system

Dependencies

• NixOS
• nh
• fzf

License

MIT