nix.dev/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contributing to nix.dev

nix.dev is a community effort to collect, create, and maintain world-class learning resources for Nix.

We strongly encourage everyone interested to contribute by asking informed questions or directly proposing changes.

Make a [pull request](https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/pulls) if you want to introduce an incremental change.
Note our [considerations on licensing and attribution](#licensing-and-attribution).

Open an [issue](https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/issues) if you want to clarify something not evident from what is provided in this repository, or if you want to discuss a significant change before starting to work on it.

## Code of conduct

Adapted from the [Contributor Covenant] and [The Carpentries Code of Conduct]:

- Use welcoming and inclusive language
- Show empathy and respect towards other people
- Be respectful of different viewpoints and experiences
- Give and gracefully accept constructive criticism
- Focus on what is best for the community

[Contributor Covenant]: https://github.com/EthicalSource/contributor_covenant/blob/cd7fcf684249786b7f7d47ba49c23a6bcb3233eb/content/version/2/1/code_of_conduct.md
[The Carpentries Code of Conduct]: https://github.com/carpentries/docs.carpentries.org/blob/4691971d9f49544054410334140a4fd391a738da/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.md

## Updating reference manuals

With the current setup, the Nix manual hosted on nix.dev does not get updated automatically with new releases.
The following manual steps are required:

- Regularly update the inputs to use the latest versions of the Nix release branches with `nix shell --run "niv update"`

  To avoid long build times, make sure Nix can be fetched from the cache.
  If it doesn't, find the latest commit that is [built by Hydra](https://hydra.nixos.org/project/nix). For example, to pin Nix 2.18:

  ```bash
  niv update nix_2-18 -r f5f4de6a550327b4b1a06123c2e450f1b92c73b6
  ```

- On each new Nix release:

  1. Add the latest version in [`default.nix`](./default.nix).
     For example, to add Nix 2.19:

     ```bash
     niv add nixos/nix -n nix_2-19 -b 2.19-maintenance
     ```

  2. Reference the latest version in [`source/reference/nix-manual.md`](./source/reference/nix-manual.md).

- If an unstable or stable release of Nixpkgs adopt a new version of Nix, update the corresponding references here.

  Also update URLs to the the Nix manual to the version used by Nixpkgs unstable.
  For example, if one wants to move from 2.18 to 2.19:
  ```bash
  sed -i 's#https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.18/#https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.19/#g' $(ls **/*.md)
  ```

## Contributor guides

Please read [Contributing Documentation](https://nix.dev/contributing/documentation).