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fix(nix): parse Nix versions without a patch component#2866

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claude/focused-goldberg-twnb5h
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fix(nix): parse Nix versions without a patch component#2866
mikeland73 wants to merge 1 commit into
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claude/focused-goldberg-twnb5h

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@mikeland73

@mikeland73 mikeland73 commented Jun 13, 2026

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Summary

Fixes #2766.

Newer Nix releases report versions that omit the patch component, for example:

nix (Nix) 2.33pre20251107_479b6b73

versionRegexp (used by parseInfo) required a major.minor.patch triple, so these versions failed to parse. Info.Version was then left empty, and the nix-version guard aborted every command with the confusing message:

Error: Devbox requires nix of version >= 2.12.0. Your version is . Please upgrade nix and try again.

This made Devbox unusable on machines running recent nixos-unstable / nightly Nix builds.

Fix

  • versionRegexp: make the patch component optional ((?:\.(?P<patch>…))?) so two-component versions like 2.33pre20251107_479b6b73 parse, while 2.21.2 continues to parse as before.
  • Info.AtLeast: extract the version-coercion logic into a new coerceSemver helper and add a missingPatchRegexp that inserts a zero patch (2.33pre… → 2.33.0-pre.20251107+479b6b73) before comparison. This keeps the existing prerelease handling (2.23.0pre20240526_7de033d6) working and makes patchless versions comparable with golang.org/x/mod/semver.

How was it tested?

  • Added a 2.33pre20251107_479b6b73 case to TestParseVersionInfoShort (parses to name nix, version 2.33pre20251107_479b6b73).
  • Added AtLeast assertions for the patchless prerelease version in TestVersionInfoAtLeast (>= 2.12.0, >= MinVersion, >= 2.33.0-pre.1, < 2.34.0).
  • go test ./nix/ and go vet ./nix/ pass. All pre-existing version tests (including the Lix 2.90.0-beta.1 and prerelease cases) still pass.

cc @Electrenator (issue reporter)

Generated by Claude Code

@claude
fix(nix): parse Nix versions without a patch component
0bd978b 
Newer Nix releases report versions like "2.33pre20251107_479b6b73"
that omit the patch component. The version regexp required
major.minor.patch, so parsing failed and the version was left empty,
causing devbox to abort with:

  Error: Devbox requires nix of version >= 2.12.0. Your version is .

Make the patch component optional in versionRegexp and coerce
patchless / prerelease Nix versions into valid semvers before
comparing in Info.AtLeast.

Fixes #2766
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings June 13, 2026 14:09
Copilot AI reviewed Jun 13, 2026
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Pull request overview

This pull request fixes Devbox’s Nix version detection and comparison for newer Nix builds that omit the patch component (e.g. 2.33pre20251107_479b6b73), preventing Info.Version from being left empty and avoiding erroneous “Your version is .” guard failures.

Changes:

  • Updated versionRegexp to allow versions with only major.minor (optional patch) while preserving existing prerelease/build parsing.
  • Refactored version comparison by adding coerceSemver, including logic to insert a .0 patch when missing before comparing with golang.org/x/mod/semver.
  • Added unit tests covering parsing and AtLeast behavior for patchless prerelease versions.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File Description
nix/nix.go Makes Nix version parsing accept patchless versions and coerces them into valid semver for comparisons.
nix/nix_test.go Adds regression tests for parsing and AtLeast comparisons with patchless prerelease versions.

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@mikeland73 Claude

mikeland73 commented Jun 13, 2026

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The one failing check (test (not-main, ubuntu-latest, project-tests-only, 2.18.0)) failed on an unrelated, environmental flake, not this change:

--- FAIL: TestExamples/development_elixir_elixir_hello_run_test.test
** (Mix) httpc request failed with: {:failed_connect, [{:to_address, {~c"builds.hex.pm", 443}},
   {:tls_alert, {:unsupported_certificate, ...

The elixir_hello example test couldn't complete a TLS handshake to builds.hex.pm (Hex's CDN) from the CI runner. This change only affects parsing of nix --version output, and this job runs nix 2.18.0 — a standard major.minor.patch version that parses identically with and without this patch — so the change is a no-op here. The relevant nix unit tests and the shellenv_node testscript passed.

A re-run of the failed job should clear it (I don't have permission to trigger one via the API).

Generated by Claude Code

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