Flake schemas – teaching Nix about your flake outputs

In plain words

Flake schemas is a tool that helps developers document and validate the outputs of Nix flakes. It allows flake creators to define what their flakes produce and enables consumers to understand flake contents at a glance. The tool is designed for Nix users working with flakes who need clearer organization and verification of their project outputs.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Flakes are a generic way to package Nix artifacts. Flake output attributes are arbitrary Nix values, so they can be packages , NixOS modules , CI jobs , and so on. While there are a number of “well-known” flake output types that are recognized by tools like the nix CLI — nix develop , for example, operates on the devShells output—nothing prevents you from defining your own flake output types. Unfortunately, such “non-standard” flake output types have a big problem: tools like nix flake show and nix flake check don’t know anything about them, so they can’t display or check anything about those outputs. The nixpkgs flake, for instance, has a lib output that Nix knows nothing about: This was a…from determinate.systems

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