Name

nix flake diff-locks - show the differences between the lock files of two flakes

Synopsis

nix flake diff-locks [option…] old-flake new-flake

Examples

• Show how the locked inputs of two versions of a flake differ:

  # nix flake diff-locks github:NixOS/nix/2.28.0 github:NixOS/nix/2.29.0
  • Updated input 'nixpkgs':
      'github:NixOS/nixpkgs/48d12d5' (2024-12-16)
    → 'github:NixOS/nixpkgs/adaa24f' (2025-05-13)
  

• Show what has changed in the lock file of the flake in the worktree relative to a previous Git revision:

  # nix flake diff-locks '.?rev=26842787496f2293c676fb36db38dacfd63497e0'
  

  or relative to a Git ref:

  # nix flake diff-locks '.?ref=HEAD'
  

Description

This command shows the differences between the lock files of two flakes old-flake and new-flake: inputs that were added, removed or updated. new-flake defaults to the flake in the current directory. The flakes do not need to use the same lock file format version; a change in the lock file version is also reported.

By default, only the locks contained in the two flakes’ own lock files are compared. With --transitive, inputs that have a lock file of their own are fetched in order to include their transitive locks in the comparison.

Options

• --transitive

  Include the transitive locks of inputs that have a lock file of their own. This may require fetching those inputs.

Common evaluation options

• --arg name expr

  Pass the value expr as the argument name to Nix functions.

• --arg-from-file name path

  Pass the contents of file path as the argument name to Nix functions.

• --arg-from-stdin name

  Pass the contents of stdin as the argument name to Nix functions.

• --argstr name string

  Pass the string string as the argument name to Nix functions.

• --debugger

  Start an interactive environment if evaluation fails.

• --eval-store store-url

  The URL of the Nix store to use for evaluation, i.e. to store derivations (.drv files) and inputs referenced by them.

• --impure

  Allow access to mutable paths and repositories.

• --include / -I path

  Add path to search path entries used to resolve lookup paths

  This option may be given multiple times.

  Paths added through -I take precedence over the nix-path configuration setting and the NIX_PATH environment variable.

• --override-flake original-ref resolved-ref

  Override the flake registries, redirecting original-ref to resolved-ref.

Logging-related options

• --debug

  Set the logging verbosity level to ‘debug’.

• --log-format format

  Set the format of log output; one of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-with-logs.

• --print-build-logs / -L

  Print full build logs on standard error.

• --quiet

  Decrease the logging verbosity level.

• --verbose / -v

  Increase the logging verbosity level.

Miscellaneous global options

• --help

  Show usage information.

• --offline

  Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.

• --option name value

  Set the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding nix.conf).

• --refresh

  Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.

• --repair

  During evaluation, rewrite missing or corrupted files in the Nix store. During building, rebuild missing or corrupted store paths.

• --version

  Show version information.

Note

See man nix.conf for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.