[charcircuit]

Dev onboarding / dev containers are not a solved problem and Nix alone is insufficient for solving them. Nix also doesn't always work since you are going to be using versions of libraries from nixpkgs instead of the the OS you are targeting. Developers would test against different libraries than end users are using. With the a container or VM you can reproduce exactly the environment the software will run in.

[sisve]

I feel devbox[1] is really good here. And solves the painpoints your addressing. You do not really need to get into the details of nix but get the benefits.

But it do not seems to have gotten the love I feel it deserves from the nix community.

1.https://www.jetpack.io/devbox/docs/quickstart/