nixpkgs/doc/builders/special/mkshell.section.md

pkgs.mkShell

pkgs.mkShell is a special kind of derivation that is only useful when using it combined with nix-shell. It will in fact fail to instantiate when invoked with nix-build.

Usage

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
pkgs.mkShell {
  # this will make all the build inputs from hello and gnutar
  # available to the shell environment
  inputsFrom = with pkgs; [ hello gnutar ];
  buildInputs = [ pkgs.gnumake ];
}