Flox

🚀 Meet Ron Efroni, Co-Founder & CEO, and Ross Turk, DevRel Lead of Flox, in this week's GitHub Startup Wednesday! We'll showcase how Flox, a Nix -based platform, leverages reproducible environments to accelerate software development. Learn how this startup is tackling common bottlenecks in the development lifecycle and empowering teams to build more efficiently.

Ockam a leader in enabling secure transport for data in motion, found themselves at a crossroads: their growing #monorepo pattern not only complicated local dev, but also created enormous complexity in CI. After experimenting unsuccessfully with tools like Bazel and Gradle, Ockam found their solution in #Nix, the proven open source build- and package-management platform. Adopting Nix enabled Ockam to: - Standardize their build processes; - Simplify onboarding for new contributors; - Align their local dev and CI environments; and - Enable reproducible builds across local dev and CI. "Across all of the options you have for monorepo tools, Nix has worked best," says Ockam CTO Mrinal Wadhwa. "I feel like a very similar set of people … who are building complex systems that require lots of different languages, who expect their teams to grow rapidly, will go down this same track," he says. Read about Ockam's journey and discover why platform leads, SREs, DevOps engineers, and other demanding users rely on Nix to solve their most Wicked Problems. https://hubs.li/Q02MrhS80 #NixOS #Flox #DevOps #CI

Service management in Flox makes it easier than ever to install and run even beefy services like #PostgreSQL, #Redis, or #Kafka in your dev environment. Define your services declaratively using TOML and let Flox take care of the rest! No more installing + cleaning up after packages, fixing broken installs, or building and managing containers and VMs. Just `flox install postgresql` or `flox install redis` and go! - No managing or versioning Dockerfiles, VM config files, or custom setup/teardown scripts; - Define services declaratively in your Flox environment manifest; - Turnkey operation, services start automatically when you need them, shut down when you don't; - Easily create rich, full-stack dev environments that run anywhere; Try it out for yourself by downloading Flox and test driving our PostgreSQL PoC environment! It's as simple as typing `flox pull flox/postgres`. And look out for our next turnkey, service-enabled PoC environment—a full-bore #RAG stack for building #LLM-powered apps and services! Get the complete scoop in our new blog. https://hubs.li/Q02Md1Ss0

You can use Package Groups in #Flox to isolate fussy or finicky dependencies, making it easy to install just. the. right. tools and libraries … without crashing into head-scratching dependency conflicts. Whether you’re refactoring a legacy application that needs just. the. right. versions of `gcc`, `libssl`, and `boost`, or building a cutting-edge dev environment for Go or Rust, Package Groups in Flox give you a simple, intuitive way to navigate the nettlesome nuances of dependency conflicts. With Flox Package Groups you can: - Isolate dependencies to run multiple versions of software side-by-side without interference. - Define and lock down exactly the right versions of required tools and libraries. - Eliminate version conflicts by easily identifying and isolating finicky packages. - Create rich dev environments that work the same across different OSs and system contexts. Curious? Check out our latest article to learn more! https://hubs.li/Q02M4JnJ0

Hooks and profiles are Flox's secret sauce, enabling you to create turnkey, feature-packed dev environments. They give you a simple, intuitive way to - Automate setup and teardown tasks for your dev environments; - Build rich features and functions into your dev environments; - Ensure your environments run + behave the same across all OSs and use cases; Flox is your scalable, repeatable solution for creating portable, isolated, reproducible build environments that don't require containers. Get Flox to get the benefits of strong isolation—just like with containers—plus the convenience of cross-language, cross-toolchain, and cross-platform virtual environments. Even better, Flox is a package manager on steroids. With #Nix and Nixpkgs as its upstream, Flox opens up access to >1M software package/version combinations! Curious? Read more here: https://hubs.li/Q02K-gqK0 #NixOS #SDLC #team-developer-support

If you live in the Denver metro area—or if you have a long layover at Denver Int'l Airport!—you won't want to miss Flox's Zach Mitchell, PhD who's slated to speak at this month's Denver Python Users Group meet up! When: Sunday, August 11th, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM MDT Where: Castlewood Library, 6739 S. Uinta St., Centennial, CO (Arapahoe Library District) - Zach is all about fostering dialogue, so expect compelling discussion about how we can make Python dev more reliable and straightforward. - Zach will demonstrate how Pythonistas can rely on Flox to create reproducible build environments that Just Work. - His talk will focus primarily on Python, but he'll also explain how you can use Flox to enable reproducibility across basically all languages and toolchains. If this sounds like Arthur C. Clarke's description of tech magic, you can count on Zach to demystify things. He'll explore how Flox is built on top of the open source Nix package manager, while also abstracting almost all of the steep learning curve associated with that powerful tool. If you've ever found managing your development environment to be a pain, Flox gives you a simplified option that integrates smoothly with your existing workflow. Don't miss Zach's talk! https://bit.ly/4fFNqAV

Flox environments are powerful stuff, but they work best when they can connect to all the systems where your other powerful stuff is. That's why you need a way for them to access the secrets that you keep. Fortunately, it's easy to add secrets to an environment using activation and profile hooks. In this post, we show you how, using the 1Password CLI as an example. https://bit.ly/3yrtJfE

Madison+ Ruby is here, and we're honored to be a sponsor! 🎊 Join us at the Overture Center for the Arts to forge meaningful connections and celebrate the Ruby community. See you soon! https://bit.ly/46suGkc #MadisonRuby #RubyCommunity #Flagrant

Ruby developers still struggle with versioning and dependency conflicts, especially when they’re building complex #Rails applications that need to consume #Postgres, #Redis, Sidekiq, and other services. Flox gives Rubyists a powerful, simple solution to these and other challenges—including environment and configuration management. With Flox, you can create portable, reproducible Ruby environments that run and behave the same way across MacOS, sundry flavors of Linux, and WSL running on Windows. For large-scale Rails projects, Flox gives you a reliable way to build everything you need into a single, shareable environment that Just Works across development teams, in CI, and in prod. Use Flox to get: - A secure, isolated Ruby development environment on your local system; - Access to dozens of versions of Ruby, from cutting-edge to legacy releases; - Access to hundreds of gem packages and versions; - The ability to define system-level dependencies for gems running on MacOS and Linux; - A catalog with >1 million software package/version combinations; - Portability and reproducibility across disparate OSs, hardware types, and contexts. Check out the latest blog to discover how Flox helps revivify Ruby development! https://hubs.li/Q02JsWp00 Even better, catch up with Flox’s @Ross Turk and @Michael Stahnke at this week’s #MadisonRuby conference. They’re happy to talk about Flox, Ruby, beer cheese soup, where in Sheboygan to get the best brats, or basically anything you like! #Ruby #Flox #NixOS #RubyOnRails #Rails #DevOps #SDLC #NixOS

You can now install #Nix flakes in #Flox! This is all kinds of neat. Let’s explore a few reasons why. - Ever needed a legacy version of a software package and … just couldn’t find it? - Or a fresh new tool that isn’t available via your system’s package manager? With #Flox, this usually isn’t a problem: Flox Catalog has more than 1 million software package/version combinations—with hundreds of different versions of GCC alone! But sometimes even Flox Catalog doesn’t have what you need. So that’s one use case for flakes in Flox. Here’s another: Ever needed to - Define complex package overrides; - Define special build instructions; or - Create unique combinations of components? In Flox this sometimes used to require complex, shell-specific scripting. But Nix flakes give you a managed, declarative, reproducible way to handle these challenges. If you need to heavily customize a build environment, and you’re comfortable with Nix, this lets you do much more. Even better, it makes it easy for you to reuse existing Nix flakes across your Flox environments! The bottom line for Nix experts is that it’s now even easier to ship rich, reproducible software environments to your teams without the hassle of teaching them Nix. Whether you're building multi-application runtimes or complex development setups, flakes in Flox give you the flexibility and control you need. Check out our new article to learn more: https://hubs.li/Q02J5yFW0 #NixOS #DevOps #SDLC