# Common Environment Variables

Most Nix commands interpret the following environment variables:

  - [`IN_NIX_SHELL`]{#env-IN_NIX_SHELL}\
    Indicator that tells if the current environment was set up by
    `nix-shell`. It can have the values `pure` or `impure`.

  - [`NIX_PATH`]{#env-NIX_PATH}\
    A colon-separated list of directories used to look up the location of Nix
    expressions using [paths](../language/values.md#type-path)
    enclosed in angle brackets (i.e., `<path>`),
    e.g. `/home/eelco/Dev:/etc/nixos`. It can be extended using the
    [`-I` option](./opt-common.md#opt-I).

  - [`NIX_IGNORE_SYMLINK_STORE`]{#env-NIX_IGNORE_SYMLINK_STORE}\
    Normally, the Nix store directory (typically `/nix/store`) is not
    allowed to contain any symlink components. This is to prevent
    “impure” builds. Builders sometimes “canonicalise” paths by
    resolving all symlink components. Thus, builds on different machines
    (with `/nix/store` resolving to different locations) could yield
    different results. This is generally not a problem, except when
    builds are deployed to machines where `/nix/store` resolves
    differently. If you are sure that you’re not going to do that, you
    can set `NIX_IGNORE_SYMLINK_STORE` to `1`.

    Note that if you’re symlinking the Nix store so that you can put it
    on another file system than the root file system, on Linux you’re
    better off using `bind` mount points, e.g.,

    ```console
    $ mkdir /nix
    $ mount -o bind /mnt/otherdisk/nix /nix
    ```

    Consult the mount 8 manual page for details.

  - [`NIX_STORE_DIR`]{#env-NIX_STORE_DIR}\
    Overrides the location of the Nix store (default `prefix/store`).

  - [`NIX_DATA_DIR`]{#env-NIX_DATA_DIR}\
    Overrides the location of the Nix static data directory (default
    `prefix/share`).

  - [`NIX_LOG_DIR`]{#env-NIX_LOG_DIR}\
    Overrides the location of the Nix log directory (default
    `prefix/var/log/nix`).

  - [`NIX_STATE_DIR`]{#env-NIX_STATE_DIR}\
    Overrides the location of the Nix state directory (default
    `prefix/var/nix`).

  - [`NIX_CONF_DIR`]{#env-NIX_CONF_DIR}\
    Overrides the location of the system Nix configuration directory
    (default `prefix/etc/nix`).

  - [`NIX_CONFIG`]{#env-NIX_CONFIG}\
    Applies settings from Nix configuration from the environment.
    The content is treated as if it was read from a Nix configuration file.
    Settings are separated by the newline character.

  - [`NIX_USER_CONF_FILES`]{#env-NIX_USER_CONF_FILES}\
    Overrides the location of the user Nix configuration files to load
    from (defaults to the XDG spec locations). The variable is treated
    as a list separated by the `:` token.

  - [`TMPDIR`]{#env-TMPDIR}\
    Use the specified directory to store temporary files. In particular,
    this includes temporary build directories; these can take up
    substantial amounts of disk space. The default is `/tmp`.

  - [`NIX_REMOTE`]{#env-NIX_REMOTE}\
    This variable should be set to `daemon` if you want to use the Nix
    daemon to execute Nix operations. This is necessary in [multi-user
    Nix installations](../installation/multi-user.md). If the Nix
    daemon's Unix socket is at some non-standard path, this variable
    should be set to `unix://path/to/socket`. Otherwise, it should be
    left unset.

  - [`NIX_SHOW_STATS`]{#env-NIX_SHOW_STATS}\
    If set to `1`, Nix will print some evaluation statistics, such as
    the number of values allocated.

  - [`NIX_COUNT_CALLS`]{#env-NIX_COUNT_CALLS}\
    If set to `1`, Nix will print how often functions were called during
    Nix expression evaluation. This is useful for profiling your Nix
    expressions.

  - [`GC_INITIAL_HEAP_SIZE`]{#env-GC_INITIAL_HEAP_SIZE}\
    If Nix has been configured to use the Boehm garbage collector, this
    variable sets the initial size of the heap in bytes. It defaults to
    384 MiB. Setting it to a low value reduces memory consumption, but
    will increase runtime due to the overhead of garbage collection.

## XDG Base Directory

New Nix commands conform to the [XDG Base Directory Specification], and use the following environment variables to determine locations of various state and configuration files:

- [`XDG_CONFIG_HOME`]{#env-XDG_CONFIG_HOME} (default `~/.config`)
- [`XDG_STATE_HOME`]{#env-XDG_STATE_HOME} (default `~/.local/state`)
- [`XDG_CACHE_HOME`]{#env-XDG_CACHE_HOME} (default `~/.cache`)

Classic Nix commands can also be made to follow this standard using the [`use-xdg-base-directories`] configuration option.

[XDG Base Directory Specification]: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
[`use-xdg-base-directories`]: ../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directories