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

Depending on what are you deploying to an agent, here are some examples:

NixOS

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

{

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05";
    cachix-deploy-flake.url = "github:cachix/cachix-deploy-flake";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, cachix-deploy-flake }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (
      system: {
        defaultPackage = let
          pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
          cachix-deploy-lib = cachix-deploy-flake.lib pkgs;
        in
          cachix-deploy-lib.spec {
            agents = {
              myagent = cachix-deploy-lib.nixos {
                fileSystems."/" = { device = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos"; };
                boot.loader.grub.devices = [ "/dev/sda" ];
                boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
                networking.hostName = "myagent";
              };
            };
          };
      }
    );
}

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-22.05";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    cachix-deploy-flake.url = "github:cachix/cachix-deploy-flake";
    cachix-deploy-flake.inputs.darwin.follows = "darwin";
    darwin.url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin";
    darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  outputs = { self, flake-utils, darwin, nixpkgs, cachix-deploy-flake }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (
      system: {
        defaultPackage = let
          pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
          cachix-deploy-lib = cachix-deploy-flake.lib pkgs;
        in
          cachix-deploy-lib.spec {
            agents = {
              myagent = cachix-deploy-lib.darwin (
                { pkgs, ... }:
                  {
                    networking.hostName = "myagent";

                    services.cachix-agent.enable = true;

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

Simple Nix Profile

{

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    cachix-deploy-flake.url = "github:cachix/cachix-deploy-flake";
  };

  outputs = { self, flake-utils, nixpkgs, cachix-deploy-flake }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (
      system: {
        defaultPackage = let
          pkgs = import nixpkgs { inherit system; };
          cachix-deploy-lib = cachix-deploy-flake.lib pkgs;
        in
          cachix-deploy-lib.spec {
            agents = {
              myagent = pkgs.git;
            };
          };
      }
    );
}

Home Manager

The following deploys a standalone Home Manager to the agent named myagent in a file named flake.nix:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    cachix-deploy-flake.url = "github:cachix/cachix-deploy-flake";
    cachix-deploy-flake.inputs.home-manager.follows = "home-manager";
    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
    home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  outputs = { self, flake-utils, home-manager, nixpkgs, cachix-deploy-flake }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (
      system: {
        defaultPackage = let
          pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages."${system}";
          cachix-deploy-lib = cachix-deploy-flake.lib pkgs;
        in
          cachix-deploy-lib.spec {
            agents = {
              myagent = cachix-deploy-lib.homeManager { } (
                { pkgs, ... }:
                  {
                    home.username = "jdoe";
                    home.homeDirectory = "/home/jdoe";
                    home.stateVersion = "22.05";

                    services.cachix-agent = {
                      enable = true;
                      name = "myagent";
                    };
                  }
              );
            };
          };
      }
    );
}

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 --print-out-paths)
cachix push mycache $spec
cachix deploy activate $spec