nix-module-system

nix-module-system is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from YPares/rigup.nix. It costs 0 tokens per session (1,165 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to difficult details of Nix’s module system, where configuration pieces are combined and evaluated. It focuses on how lib.evalModules handles module identity, duplicate imports, and injected arguments.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for debugging or designing Nix modules, especially around deduplication, dynamic wrappers, _module.args, and specialArgs.
Why use it?
It fills gaps that can be hard to resolve from the official documentation alone.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit It is for debugging or designing Nix modules, especially around deduplication, dynamic wrappers, _module.args, and specialArgs.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ypares/rigup.nix/nix-module-system
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add YPares/rigup.nix --skill nix-module-system
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/YPares/rigup.nix

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for nix-module-system

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ypares/rigup.nix/nix-module-system.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ypares/rigup.nix/nix-module-system)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ypares/rigup.nix/nix-module-system"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ypares/rigup.nix/nix-module-system.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 0 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,165 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00000 $0.01165
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00583
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00233
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00117

Measured 8d ago against content hash 00d83070c05f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

nix-module-system scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

riglets/nix-module-system/SKILL.md · 152 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 152 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Nix Module System: Dark Corners

Practical knowledge about lib.evalModules that's hard to find in official docs.

Sources:

Module Identity & Deduplication

When the same module is included multiple times (e.g., via imports from different places), evalModules deduplicates by identity:

Path-based modules: Deduplicated by path string

modules = [ ./foo.nix ./foo.nix ];  # Same path → evaluated once

Function/attrset modules: Deduplicated by key attribute

# Without key: each inclusion is separate (can cause "defined multiple times" errors)
modules = [ myModule myModule ];  # Evaluated twice!

# With key: deduplicated
myModule = {
  key = "my-unique-module-id";
  imports = [ actualModule ];
};
modules = [ myModule myModule ];  # Evaluated once

Use key when you wrap modules dynamically and need deduplication across import chains.

Module Arguments

_module.args vs specialArgs

Both inject arguments into module functions, but differ in timing:

evalModules {
  specialArgs = { foo = "available during option declaration"; };
  modules = [{
    _module.args = { bar = "only available in config, not options"; };
  }];
}
specialArgs _module.args
Available in options = { ... }
Available in config = { ... }
Can reference config

Rule of thumb: Use specialArgs for things needed to declare options (like lib), use _module.args for runtime values (like pkgs).

_module.check

Disable "unknown option" errors:

{ _module.check = false; }

Read the full file on GitHub · 152 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 152 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 00d83070c05f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

nix-module-system is a skill published in the GitHub repository YPares/rigup.nix (88 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,165 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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