From db996807d1c139566b8549183cc8cf0375e5ceea Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Raito Bezarius <masterancpp@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2026 02:35:03 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] ci: run the lib tests under Lix

The lib tests exercise things like `nix-instantiate` and their error
messages. Therefore, they can regress when the wording is too coupled to
a specific version or implementation.

Given that Lix is already easy to reach out in nixpkgs and
`lib/tests/test-with-nix.nix` is consumed by Lix's own CI, we propose to
run the suite under `pkgs.lix` too.

The default `lib-tests` output stays Nix-only because it is part of the
release tarball closure; `lib-tests-lix` is a separate CI job and not
part of the release tarball closure.

As far as I can tell:

- that extra test takes ~55s on my system under Lix in the sandbox. Over
  a faster builder, it takes ~20s.
- this is a new *step* in an existing job, no new checkout, no new
  install or whatever, so no extra setup cost.
- the symlink join do not cause rebuild of the nix-unit things and so
  on. pkgs.lix is substituted and not rebuilt.
- the existing lib-tests are already doing 2 runs of testWithNix, Lix is
  a 3rd.

If this proves to be a problem for CI performance, we can always revert
the long part (fileset) and decrease even further the cost of this
additional minute check.
---
 .github/workflows/build.yml | 8 ++++++--
 ci/default.nix              | 7 +++++++
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/.github/workflows/build.yml b/.github/workflows/build.yml
index c85a3989219e..513fb9dbd7c3 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build.yml
@@ -35,8 +35,8 @@ jobs:
         include:
           - runner: ubuntu-24.04
             system: x86_64-linux
-            builds: [shell, manual-nixos, lib-tests, tarball]
-            desc: shell, docs, lib, tarball
+            builds: [shell, manual-nixos, lib-tests, lib-tests-lix, tarball]
+            desc: shell, docs, lib, lib-lix, tarball
           - runner: ubuntu-24.04-arm
             system: aarch64-linux
             builds: [shell, manual-nixos, manual-nixpkgs]
@@ -93,6 +93,10 @@ jobs:
         if: contains(matrix.builds, 'lib-tests') && !cancelled()
         run: nix-build-uncached nixpkgs/untrusted/ci --arg nixpkgs ./nixpkgs/untrusted-pinned -A lib-tests
 
+      - name: Build lib tests (Lix)
+        if: contains(matrix.builds, 'lib-tests-lix') && !cancelled()
+        run: nix-build-uncached nixpkgs/untrusted/ci --arg nixpkgs ./nixpkgs/untrusted-pinned -A lib-tests-lix
+
       - name: Build tarball
         if: contains(matrix.builds, 'tarball') && !cancelled()
         run: nix-build-uncached nixpkgs/untrusted/ci --arg nixpkgs ./nixpkgs/untrusted-pinned -A tarball
diff --git a/ci/default.nix b/ci/default.nix
index 06fa75bbc38f..cb5dee81b465 100644
--- a/ci/default.nix
+++ b/ci/default.nix
@@ -63,6 +63,13 @@ rec {
 
   # CI jobs
   lib-tests = import ../lib/tests/release.nix { inherit pkgs; };
+  # The lib tests may assert on specific error messages which are
+  # implementation-defined. Run them under Lix too so that nixpkgs do not
+  # couple its tests too hard to specific wordings.
+  lib-tests-lix = import ../lib/tests/release.nix {
+    inherit pkgs;
+    nixVersions = [ pkgs.lix ];
+  };
   manual-nixos = (import ../nixos/release.nix { }).manual.${system} or null;
   manual-nixpkgs = (import ../doc { pkgs = docPkgs; });
   nixpkgs-vet = pkgs.callPackage ./nixpkgs-vet.nix {