Devenv 1.8: Progress TUI, SecretSpec, Listing Tasks, and Smaller Containers

3 months ago 7

devenv 1.8 fixes a couple of annoying regressions since the 1.7 release, but also includes several new features:

Progress TUI with async core
SecretSpec integration for declarative secrets management
Task improvements with task listing
CLI improvements with package options support
Smaller containers with 67% smaller images

Progress TUI

We've rewritten our tracing integration to improve reporting on what devenv is doing.

More importantly, devenv is now fully asynchronous under the hood, enabling parallel execution of operations. This means faster performance in scenarios where multiple independent tasks can run simultaneously.

The new progress interface provides real-time feedback on what devenv is doing:

devenv progress bar

We're continuing to improve visibility into Nix operations to give you even better insights into the build process.

SecretSpec Integration

We've integrated SecretSpec, a new standard for declarative secrets management that separates secret declaration from provisioning.

This allows teams to define what secrets applications need while letting each developer, CI system, and production environment provide them from their preferred secure provider.

Learn more in Announcing SecretSpec Declarative Secrets Management.

Task improvements

Listing tasks

The devenv tasks list command now groups tasks by namespace, providing a cleaner and more organized view:

$ devenv tasks list backend: └── lint (has status check) └── test └── build (watches: src/backend/**/*.py) deploy: └── production docs: └── generate (watches: docs/**/*.md) └── publish frontend: └── lint └── test (has status check) └── build

Running multi-level tasks

You can now run tasks at any level in the hierarchy. By default, tasks run in single mode (only the specified task):

# Run only frontend:build (default single mode) $ devenv tasks run frontend:build Running tasks frontend:build Succeeded frontend:build 5ms 1 Succeeded 5.75ms # Run frontend:build with all its dependencies (before mode) $ devenv tasks run frontend:build --mode before Running tasks frontend:build Succeeded frontend:lint 4ms Succeeded frontend:test 10ms Succeeded frontend:build 4ms 3 Succeeded 20.36ms # Run frontend:build and all tasks that depend on it (after mode) $ devenv tasks run frontend:build --mode after Running tasks frontend:build Succeeded frontend:build 5ms Succeeded deploy:production 5ms 2 Succeeded 11.44ms

CLI improvements

Package options support

The CLI now supports specifying single packages via the --option flag (#1988). This allows for more flexible package configuration directly from the command line:

$ devenv shell --option "languages.java.jdk.package:pkg" "graalvm-oracle"

Container optimizations

The CI container ghcr.io/cachix/devenv/devenv:v1.8 has been reduced (uncompressed) from 1,278 MB in v1.7 to 414 MB in v1.8—that's a reduction of over 860 MB (67% smaller!).

This makes devenv container much faster to pull and more efficient in CI/CD pipelines.

Thank You

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