[kaba0]

I think the current solution is not too far from an ideal scenario: package the most commonly used dependencies/programs in nixpks (roughly what would be available with other package managers’ default channel/repository), and use flakes as an out-of-tree solution for proprietary/freemium/hard-to-package/very specialist software, similarly to what you might use Docker for.

That way you get the benefit of a minimal-sized system with no size overhead for the most part, yet out-of-tree git repos get reproducible at any commit, and it is even easier than adding a new repo to apt, etc.

With content-addressable hashing, the problem may largely solve itself, reusing unchanged dependencies between older flakes.