Deploying to agents

Prerequisites

Start by getting your agent running.

Get Deploy Activate Auth Token

1. Click “Start a Deployment” on your workspace

2. Write the description of the token, for an example “github actions CD”

3. Click “Generate”

4. Copy the token and save it

Write Deploy specification

NixOS

The following deploys NixOS to the agent named myagent in a file named deploy.nix:

let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
in pkgs.writeText "cachix-deploy.json" (builtins.toJSON {
  agents = {
    myagent = (pkgs.nixos {
      fileSystems."/" = { device = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos"; };
      boot.loader.grub.devices = ["/dev/sda"];
      boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
      networking.hostName = "myagent";
    }).toplevel;
  };
})

To fully grasp the JSON specification see the reference.

nix-darwin

The following deploys nix-darwin to the agent named myagent in a file named flake.nix:

{

inputs = {
  nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-21.11";
  nixpkgs-unstable.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/master";
  darwin.url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin";
  darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};

outputs = { self, darwin, nixpkgs, nixpkgs-unstable }:
  let
    pkgs = import nixpkgs { system = "aarch64-darwin"; };
    unstable-pkgs = import nixpkgs-unstable { system = "aarch64-darwin"; };
    systems = nixpkgs.lib.platforms.darwin;
  in {
    defaultPackage = forAllSystems (system:
      pkgs.writeText "cachix-agents.json" (builtins.toJSON {
        agents = {
          myagent = (darwin.lib.darwinSystem {
            system = "aarch64-darwin";
            modules = [
              (darwin + "/pkgs/darwin-installer/installer.nix")
              ({ pkgs, ... }:

                {
                  environment.systemPackages = [
                    pkgs.vim
                  ];

                  networking.hostName = "myagent";

                  services.cachix-agent.enable = true;
                  # needed until 21.11 has cachix 0.7.0
                  services.cachix-agent.package = unstable-pkgs.cachix;

                  # Auto upgrade nix package and the daemon service.
                  services.nix-daemon.enable = true;
                  nix.package = pkgs.nix;
                })
            ];
          }).system;
        };
      })
    );
  };
}

Activate the deployment

Assuming you’ve created a binary cache called mycache:

• you have a write token to replace CACHE-TOKEN

• previously generated token to replace ACTIVATE-TOKEN.

The following snippet will build your machine, push binaries to mycache and deploy your agent:

export CACHIX_ACTIVATE_TOKEN=ACTIVATE-TOKEN
export CACHIX_AUTH_TOKEN=CACHE-TOKEN

spec=$(nix-build deploy.nix)
cachix push mycache $spec
cachix deploy activate $spec