Any Nix package, live in your browser
- ID
- 23388
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 11 Sep 2026, 7:44 AM
- Fetched
- 11 Sep 2026, 7:55 AM
- Provider
- Simon Willison
- Category
- developer-ai
- Original URL
- https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/10/trynix/
- Source URL
- https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/
Summary
- Score
- 7.0
- Created
- 11 Sep 2026, 7:55 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coders
What happened
Farid Zakaria built trynix.dev, which runs a qemu-wasm powered x86_64 Linux VM entirely in the browser via WebAssembly, capable of booting any Nix package from the past 13 years. Packages are URL-addressable (e.g., ?pkg=python3@3.6.2), and a companion GitHub Action called trynix-preview can post a link on a PR that boots the PR's build in-browser for review with no servers involved.
Why it matters
If you work with Nix or care about reproducible environments, you can now share a URL that boots an exact package version in anyone's browser—useful for bug reproduction, onboarding demos, or PR review. The trynix-preview GitHub Action is the most immediately actionable piece: it lets reviewers interactively test a PR's build without cloning or local setup.
Discussion angle
Whether browser-based VMs like this could replace some CI preview environments or Docker-based dev setups for small teams, and what the latency/resource tradeoffs look like compared to traditional ephemeral environments.