Haskell Project

This note covers 05-haskell/, which packages a tiny Cabal executable with Nix and provides a dev shell for editing it.

1. What the Example Teaches

The example combines three pieces that show up in real Haskell projects:

a local Cabal package, defined by mini-haskell.cabal,
a flake output that builds that package with callCabal2nix, and
a dev shell that provides GHC, cabal-install, and Haskell Language Server.

That keeps the example focused on one idea: a flake can describe both how to build a Haskell program and how to work on it interactively.

2. The Package Build

pkgs.haskellPackages.callCabal2nix reads the local Cabal file and produces a Nix derivation for the executable:

project = haskellPackages.callCabal2nix "mini-haskell" ./. { };

The first argument is the package name as it should appear in Nix. The second is the source tree. The third is an attrset of overrides, which this example leaves empty.

That derivation becomes packages.<system>.default, so nix build produces the executable, and nix run executes it.

3. The Dev Shell

The dev shell uses pkgs.mkShell and adds the tools you need to edit and run the project:

ghc for the compiler,
cabal-install for local development commands, and
haskell-language-server for editor support.

This keeps the shell small and obvious. For projects with many Haskell dependencies, shellFor can construct a shell from the package set itself, but this example stays with mkShell to keep the mechanics visible.

4. The Check

checks.<system>.greeting runs the built executable with an argument and compares its output to an expected string.

That gives nix flake check one concrete behavior to verify:

the Cabal package evaluates,
the executable builds, and
the program runs and prints the expected result.

5. Commands to Try

cd 05-haskell

nix develop
cabal run
cabal run -- flakes

nix build
./result/bin/mini-haskell
./result/bin/mini-haskell flakes

nix run
nix run . -- flakes
nix flake check

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