Provide a way to integrate with nix templates

[mainrs]

Provide a way to integrate with nix templates

[yajo]

For Copier, ˋnix flake initˋ is nothing more than yet another bootstrap-only templating engine. Not much different from cookiecutter or yeoman.

To be able to use the update feature of Copier, you need an impure environment with network access to clone and replay last copy, update the current one, compare them and do the smart evolution. Thus I think what you're asking is a bit over-engineered.

OTOH I agree that it'd be helpful for a template to supply an officially-supported version of Copier, just to make sure the template works fine with that Copier derivation. You can get the one from here, from flakehub or from nixpkgs and provide it as an output of your flake.

Worth it? I guess only in cases where you need extra plug-ins. For other cases you can tell your users to do something like this:

nix run github:copier-org/copier/v9.3.1 copy gl:moduon/precommix .

And from that moment, you'll be able to update with:

nix run github:copier-org/copier/v9.3.1 update

With a couple extra lines of nix code in your flake, you could provide this interface:

nix run gitlab:moduon/precommix#copy
nix run gitlab:moduon/precommix#update

So IMHO there's not much left for Copier to do in this regard. Just adapt to your needs 😊