Nix is a bit like JSON + functions. An object (called attrset in nix): { a = 3; b = 4; } A list: [ 1 2 3 4 ]; A string: "hello" A multi-line

Nix is a bit like JSON + functions. An object (called attrset in nix): { a = 3; b = 4; } A list: [ 1 2 3 4 ]; A string: "hello" A multi-line string: '' multine string '' This defines a lambda with two arguments: a: b: a + b; It's possible to pattern-match arguments. This accepts an attrset with keys a and b, and maps them to local variables: { a, b }: a + b; There are some variations around that like `{ a ? 3 }:` `{ a }@attrs:` and `{ a, ... }` One special type is the path, which has it's own literal that starts with `./` To load a file, the `import` keyword is being used. In most cases the whole file is a big lambda function, which gets returned by the import. Once you know that you can start reading nixpkgs and learn about the building blocks to constructs packages.