[Nix-dev] monitor.nixos.org

[Rok Garbas]

> Are we always updating to the latest version? For example on a release
> branch we might want to pin to a major.minor if the project follows semver,
> but maybe on master we always want the latest version.
>

The maintainer who writes nix expression for the package also decides
which version update script will follow.

> How do we iterate over all the packages? Do we regularly run all the update
> scripts? Are the updates directly pushed to master or are new PR
> automatically created?
>

Initially updates will happen as now, done manually by the
maintainers. The only this that changes is that maintainers will be
asked/required to write an update script that and to use that update
script.

Later we can see how we can hook this script in Hydra/CI, but we first
need to have some update scripts :)


> Let's say the convention is that derivations exposes an "updater" passthru.
> Does it mean that all the derivations need to be updated or can we magically
> support all github projects?
>

I wouldn't magically support all github projects, but rather provide
update script one by one. As we go along adding an update which follow
a branch might look like:
https://github.com/mozilla-releng/services/blob/master/nix/tools/default.nix#L10

> I still think that some of this need to be tried out so we might as well
> adopt garbas' approach for now but it would be nice to have a clearer
> picture as well.
>

The PR I created (https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/20844) leaves
all the door open for improvement, but brings us just a step closer to
the future where we could easily manage 1000x more packages then we do
now.



-- Rok