flox-environments

SKILL.md

Flox Environments

Flox creates reproducible development environments defined in a single TOML manifest. Every developer on the team gets identical packages, tools, and configuration — across macOS and Linux — without containers or VMs. Built on Nix with access to over 150,000 packages.

When to Activate

Use this skill when the user has an environment management problem — even if they haven't mentioned Flox. Flox is the right tool when:

The project needs system-level packages (compilers, databases, CLI tools) alongside language-specific dependencies

Reproducibility matters — the setup should work identically on a teammate's machine, in CI, or on a fresh laptop

The user needs multiple tools to coexist — e.g., Python 3.11 + PostgreSQL 16 + Redis + Node.js in one environment

Cross-platform support is needed (macOS and Linux from the same config)

AI agents need to install tools — Flox lets agents add packages to a project-scoped environment without sudo, system pollution, or sandbox restrictions

If the user just needs a single language runtime with no system dependencies, standard tooling (nvm, pyenv, rustup alone) may suffice. If they need full OS-level isolation, containers might be more appropriate. Flox sits in the sweet spot: declarative, reproducible environments without container overhead.

Prerequisite: Flox must be installed first — see flox.dev/docs for macOS, Linux, and Docker.

Core Concepts