Build plugin specs as derivations

[willruggiano]

Right now, the entire lazy spec is defined "in a single derivation". Better - I think - would be to build each plugin individually (which we already do) and attach to it (e.g. via passthru) its lazy spec (as a derivation). This is more in line with how flake-parts is organized.

[willruggiano]

Doing it this way would also allow for breaking up the plugin specs as is mentioned here; https://github.com/folke/lazy.nvim?tab=readme-ov-file#-structuring-your-plugins

Might be nice.

[willruggiano]

re: passthru.lazy-spec (or whatever)

it would allow cpath (newly added) to be a function, so instead of:

  lfs = let
    package = luajitPackages.luafilesystem;
  in {
    inherit package;
    cpath = "${package}/lib/lua/5.1/?.so";
  };

you could do

  lfs = {
    package = luajitPackages.luafilesystem;
    cpath = drv: "${drv}/lib/lua/5.1/?.so";
  };

https://github.com/willruggiano/neovim.drv/blob/main/plugins/spec.nix#L269-L274

[willruggiano]

another interesting approach would be more like dream2nix, so the "plugin spec" could import modules

e.g. https://github.com/nix-community/dream2nix/blob/main/examples/packages/basics/mkDerivation/default.nix

[nekowinston]

Does that mean turning the single LazySpec we build atm to a LazySpec[], generating a Lua file for each plugin, then importing them like

vim.opt.rtp:prepend "${cfg.package}"
vim.opt.rtp:prepend "${cfg.plugins}" -- symlinkJoin of all plugins or similar
require("lazy").setup({
  spec = {
    { import = "nvim-treesitter" }, -- loading the lua configs from the plugin rtp
    { import = "which-key" },
    -- ... etc
  },
})

I'd also like to have a way to add custom Lua specs in there, so that you could configure the plugin package via Nix, and then use Lua with the opts override pattern that's common in LazyVim, e.g:

return {
  {
    name = "myplugin",
    opts = function(_, opts)
      opts.some_override = "foo"
    end
  }
}

while defining the package/dir through Nix-built packages.

[willruggiano]

re: generating a Lua file per plugin

Yes, I think that's what I meant.

[willruggiano]

re: custom Lua specs

I think we should able to support basically anything if we're strategic about how we integrate with lazy. Specifically this part of the docs;

When you import specs, you can override them by simply adding a spec for the same plugin to your local specs, adding any keys you want to override / merge.

https://lazy.folke.io/usage/structuring#%EF%B8%8F-importing-specs-config--opts

This seems like it maps really well into Nix - it reminds me a lot of flake-parts.

I'll add some more comments here this week hopefully