Core Concepts

Vocabulary and mental models used throughout the stack. Leaf articles in this domain are draft; pair with 01-philosophy for Week 1 mental-model reading.

Contents

• Derivation — Build recipe and store object
• Store Path — Hashed paths under the Nix store
• Closure — Runtime dependency closure
• Profile — User or system profile generations
• Generation — Bootable or profile generation
• Channel — Classic nixpkgs distribution mechanism
• Flake (concept) — Pinned inputs and pure evaluation — deep dive in 07
• Overlay — Composable package-set modification
• Overlay vs Override — When to use which
• Fixed-Output Derivation — FODs and output hashing
• Import From Derivation — Realise-during-eval (IFD)
• Content-Addressed Store — CA store model
• Machine mesh — Multi-machine interconnect and inter-trust (concept)