Nix and AI: Are we there yet?

AI stacks look like the perfect use-case for Nix: Massively multiplying dependency matrices, double-digit-GB OCI images, tedious, Sisyphean build → push → pull → test loops. In ML/AI dev, "It runs" literally means "It runs … on this machine." So … why aren't more ML teams using Nix? This talk is a field guide to the logistics and sociotechnics of what it takes to make Nix happen in AI. Its point of departure is the following question: "Why do we ship what we ship the way we ship it? Either Nix fits the conveyor belt people already ship on, or ML teams learn a new way to build → ship → deploy software. So what will it take to fit Nix to this conveyor belt?

Transcript

1. PLANETNIX 2026 Nix and AI Are We There Yet? The Agony and the Empathy Flox Nix AI 1 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
2. OPENING AI has every problem Nix was built for Dependency chaos. 2 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
3. OPENING AI has every problem Nix was built for Lack of reproducability. 3 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
4. OPENING AI has every problem Nix was built for Huge artifacts and complex setup. 4 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
5. VISUAL LANGUAGE Perspective key ML engineer Me 5 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
6. 6 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
7. OPENING · PARADOX So why aren’t ML teams already on Nix? 7 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
8. A DAY IN THE LIFE From the ML engineer’s chair One tutorial says Conda. 8 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
9. A DAY IN THE LIFE From the ML engineer’s chair Another says pip. 9 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
10. A DAY IN THE LIFE From the ML engineer’s chair Another says build from source. 10 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
11. A DAY IN THE LIFE · CONTINUED Conflicting setup is normal Linux and Windows flags diverge. 11 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
12. A DAY IN THE LIFE · CONTINUED Conflicting setup is normal Teammates have different setups. 12 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
13. A DAY IN THE LIFE · CONTINUED Conflicting setup is normal Both “work,” until handoff time. 13 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
14. A DAY IN THE LIFE Not a skill issue These are brilliant people. 14 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
15. A DAY IN THE LIFE Not a skill issue Their domain is models, not plumbing. 15 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
16. A DAY IN THE LIFE Not a skill issue Tooling sprawl is a response to incentives. 16 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
17. A DAY IN THE LIFE · CONTINUED I got it working. I’m not touching it. This is rational behavior when your KPI is model quality, not environment architecture. 17 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
18. THE HANDOFF Every SDLC boundary creates rework Operational teams reverse-engineer what “working” means. 18 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
19. THE HANDOFF Every SDLC boundary creates rework Two scientists can mean two productionization projects. 19 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
20. THE HANDOFF Every SDLC boundary creates rework The conveyor belt is usually duct tape. 20 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
21. THE HANDOFF This is where Nix should shine Lock it. Reproduce it. Remove reverse-engineering from the release path. 21 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
22. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #1 Where do I start? 22 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
23. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #1 What is a derivation? 23 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
24. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #1 Which command do I want: `nix develop` or `nix shell`? 24 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
25. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #2 Shell/path behavior feels unfamiliar. 25 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
26. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #2 Tutorials fail in subtle ways. 26 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
27. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #2 The feedback loop is expensive. 27 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
28. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #3 Needed package missing in nixpkgs. 28 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
29. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #3 Then pip-in-Nix warnings and “broken guarantees” debates. 29 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
30. JUST USE NIX Barrier set #3 Builders/substitutes setup appears before model work starts. 30 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
31. JUST USE NIX This is a UX problem The barrier is not intelligence. The barrier is onboarding and workflow ergonomics. 31 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
32. GOOD NEWS CUDA GPU setup used to be a major pain point. 32 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
33. GOOD NEWS CUDA Flox + NVIDIA + NixOS Foundation changed the baseline. 33 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
34. GOOD NEWS CUDA It proves hard barriers can move. 34 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
35. CPU TWIST Production inference is often CPU Teams train on GPUs. 35 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
36. CPU TWIST Production inference is often CPU They frequently scale inference on CPUs for cost. 36 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
37. CPU TWIST Production inference is often CPU Environment strategy must cleanly cover both targets. 37 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
38. WHAT WILL IT TAKE? The seam: where Nix ends and Python begins Not “nixify everything.” Not “just Docker.” Use the right layer boundary. 38 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
39. LAYER OWNERSHIP Nix/Flox owns system and native deps CUDA libraries, PyTorch binaries, C extensions. 39 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
40. LAYER OWNERSHIP Nix/Flox owns system and native deps This is where reproducibility pain is highest. 40 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
41. LAYER OWNERSHIP · CONTINUED UV owns pure Python app dependencies Strong lockfiles and traceability for app-level Python. 41 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
42. LAYER OWNERSHIP · CONTINUED UV owns pure Python app dependencies Together with Nix: provenance plus practical workflow. 42 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
43. WHY THIS MATTERS Artifact size is not academic Generic PyTorch wheel: ~800 MB. Nix-built target-specific package: ~55 MB. 43 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
44. PRIORITY 1 Package freshness AI/ML/Python packages must stay current continuously. 44 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
45. PRIORITY 1 Package freshness Freshness is highly variable 45 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
46. PRIORITY 2 Better Python-to-Nix bridges uv2nix and dream2nix are promising. (but have been in that state for a while) 46 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
47. PRIORITY 3 Friendlier onboarding Meet ML teams where they are. 47 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
48. PRIORITY 3 Friendlier onboarding Reduce shell/path/syntax friction. 48 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
49. PRIORITY 3 Friendlier onboarding Build paved roads. Improve UX. 49 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
50. AI CASE STUDY AI may unlock Nix adoption for AI teams 2.5 years ago: 31 iterations for a working Nix package. Yesterday: one prompt, clean package. 50 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
51. SUMMARY Top 3 improvement recommendations Keep AI/ML/Python packages continuously fresh. Improve Python-to-Nix bridge reliability (uv2nix/dream2nix). Focus on onboarding as a workflow. Meet your users where they are. 51 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
52. CLOSE Are we there yet? Not yet. 52 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
53. CLOSE Are we there yet? But the shape of the answer is clear. 53 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
54. CLOSE Are we there yet? The distance is closing from both directions. Thank you Q&A 54 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
55. 55 / 56 Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma
56. flox.dev Keys: Arrows/Space/J/K (1) • PgUp/PgDn (+/-5) • Home/End or G/Shift+G @stahnma