# Graphviz + Nix... Any interest?

**URL:** https://forum.graphviz.org/t/graphviz-nix-any-interest/3326
**Category:** Dev
**Created:** [April 1, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/graphviz-nix-any-interest/3326 "2026-04-01T17:17:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![caffeine\_storm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/user_avatar/forum.graphviz.org/caffeine_storm/32/2077_2.png) [@caffeine\_storm](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/caffeine_storm)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/graphviz-nix-any-interest/3326/1 "2026-04-01T17:17:29Z")

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Hi all,

Recently, in orthogonal efforts, I’ve been trying to pick up Nix and seeing if I can hack on Graphviz (r.e. vt100 output format). On a lark, I decided to smush these efforts together 🙃 .

I’ve got the beginnings of a Nix Flake that lets me “enter” a development environment for hacking on Graphviz. Would anyone be interested in me sharing it? Feedback would be appreciated, too 😃 .

I can imagine a world where it would make sense to include a `flake.nix` file in the Graphviz repo itself so that new/potential contributors can easily spin up a sane+known+sandboxy environment. Let me know if that sounds interesting enough to warrant any cleanup/onboarding; I’d expect it would cost at least some time from Graphviz developers in the form of code review. I want to verify an appetite for Nix things before opening PRs out of the blue 😅 .

Thanks!

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### Author: ![mark](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/graphviz/user_avatar/forum.graphviz.org/mark/32/84_2.png) [@mark](https://forum.graphviz.org/u/mark)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2026, 11:58pm UTC](https://forum.graphviz.org/t/graphviz-nix-any-interest/3326/2 "2026-04-09T23:58:03Z")

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I don’t think any of the Graphviz devs use Nix, but maybe some of the users do? I don’t know much about what a nix flake does.