nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/from_md/development/meta-attributes.section.xml
pennae 0a6e6cf7e6 nixos/manual: render module chapters with nixos-render-docs
this converts meta.doc into an md pointer, not an xml pointer. since we
no longer need xml for manual chapters we can also remove support for
manual chapters from md-to-db.sh

since pandoc converts smart quotes to docbook quote elements and our
nixos-render-docs does not we lose this distinction in the rendered
output. that's probably not that bad, our stylesheet didn't make use of
this anyway (and pre-23.05 versions of the chapters didn't use quote
elements either).

also updates the nixpkgs manual to clarify that option docs support all
extensions (although it doesn't support headings at all, so heading
anchors don't work by extension).
2023-01-27 20:07:34 +01:00

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<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xml:id="sec-meta-attributes">
<title>Meta Attributes</title>
<para>
Like Nix packages, NixOS modules can declare meta-attributes to
provide extra information. Module meta attributes are defined in the
<literal>meta.nix</literal> special module.
</para>
<para>
<literal>meta</literal> is a top level attribute like
<literal>options</literal> and <literal>config</literal>. Available
meta-attributes are <literal>maintainers</literal>,
<literal>doc</literal>, and <literal>buildDocsInSandbox</literal>.
</para>
<para>
Each of the meta-attributes must be defined at most once per module
file.
</para>
<programlisting language="nix">
{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:
{
options = {
...
};
config = {
...
};
meta = {
maintainers = with lib.maintainers; [ ericsagnes ];
doc = ./default.md;
buildDocsInSandbox = true;
};
}
</programlisting>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
<literal>maintainers</literal> contains a list of the module
maintainers.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<literal>doc</literal> points to a valid
<link xlink:href="https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#sec-contributing-markup">Nixpkgs-flavored
CommonMark</link> file containing the module documentation. Its
contents is automatically added to
<xref linkend="ch-configuration" />. Changes to a module
documentation have to be checked to not break building the NixOS
manual:
</para>
<programlisting>
$ nix-build nixos/release.nix -A manual.x86_64-linux
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<literal>buildDocsInSandbox</literal> indicates whether the
option documentation for the module can be built in a derivation
sandbox. This option is currently only honored for modules
shipped by nixpkgs. User modules and modules taken from
<literal>NIXOS_EXTRA_MODULE_PATH</literal> are always built
outside of the sandbox, as has been the case in previous
releases.
</para>
<para>
Building NixOS option documentation in a sandbox allows caching
of the built documentation, which greatly decreases the amount
of time needed to evaluate a system configuration that has NixOS
documentation enabled. The sandbox also restricts which
attributes may be referenced by documentation attributes (such
as option descriptions) to the <literal>options</literal> and
<literal>lib</literal> module arguments and the
<literal>pkgs.formats</literal> attribute of the
<literal>pkgs</literal> argument, <literal>config</literal> and
the rest of <literal>pkgs</literal> are disallowed and will
cause doc build failures when used. This restriction is
necessary because we cannot reproduce the full nixpkgs
instantiation with configuration and overlays from a system
configuration inside the sandbox. The <literal>options</literal>
argument only includes options of modules that are also built
inside the sandbox, referencing an option of a module that isnt
built in the sandbox is also forbidden.
</para>
<para>
The default is <literal>true</literal> and should usually not be
changed; set it to <literal>false</literal> only if the module
requires access to <literal>pkgs</literal> in its documentation
(e.g. because it loads information from a linked package to
build an option type) or if its documentation depends on other
modules that also arent sandboxed (e.g. by using types defined
in the other module).
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>