Dev Environment

When you enter a Stackpanel dev shell, you get a fully configured environment: the right tools on your PATH, environment variables set, scripts registered, and files generated. Everything is reproducible—the same config produces the same environment on every machine.

All of this is configured through stackpanel.devshell.* and stackpanel.scripts.* options, either in your .stack/config.nix or through the Studio UI.

What's in the Dev Shell

A Stackpanel dev shell gives you:

• Packages — CLI tools and language runtimes pinned to exact versions via Nix
• Scripts — Project-specific commands available as executables in your PATH
• Environment variables — Set at shell entry, available to all processes
• Shell hooks — Code that runs when you enter the shell (e.g., bun install)
• Generated files — Config files built from your Stackpanel config and written to disk

These all compose through the module system—your config, builtin modules, and extensions each contribute their piece, and the result is merged into a single coherent environment.

Quick Example

# .stack/config.nix
{ pkgs, ... }: {
  # Packages on PATH
  stackpanel.devshell.packages = with pkgs; [
    nodejs
    bun
    jq
    awscli2
  ];

  # Custom scripts
  stackpanel.scripts.dev = {
    exec = "bun run --filter './apps/*' dev";
    description = "Start all app dev servers";
  };

  stackpanel.scripts.lint = {
    exec = "oxlint .";
    description = "Lint the codebase";
  };

  # Environment variables
  stackpanel.devshell.env = {
    NODE_ENV = "development";
  };
}

Enter the shell with nix develop --impure (or let direnv do it automatically), and you'll have node, bun, jq, and aws on your PATH, a dev command that starts your servers, and NODE_ENV set to "development".

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