because of course you just end up with a .jar and some shell scripts around it…

Well that's for making a Nix package or deploying, right? If softmoonworld is (perhaps initially) only interested in development, there should be a way to add it via Gradle. My hacky solution added the library via nix profile install, thus:

test {
        useJUnitPlatform()
        def userHome = System.getProperty("user.home")
        systemProperty "java.library.path", findProperty("javaPath") ?: "${userHome}/.nix-profile/lib"
    }

because of course you just end up with a .jar and some shell scripts around it…

Well that's for making a Nix package or deploying, right? If softmoonworld is (perhaps initially) only interested in development, there should be a way to add it via Gradle. My hacky solution added the library via nix profile install, thus:

test {
        useJUnitPlatform()
        def userHome = System.getProperty("user.home")
        systemProperty "java.library.path", findProperty("javaPath") ?: "${userHome}/.nix-profile/lib"
}

My hacky GitLab CI build is like this:

# Build on NixOS using the devshell from `flake.nix` and secp256k1 installed via `nix profile install`
nixos-devshell:
  image: nixos/nix:latest
  variables:
    NIXPKGS_URL: "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable"
  before_script:
    # Configure Nix to use a binary cache and enable experimental features
    - nix-env -iA nixpkgs.cachix
    - cachix use nix-community
    - echo "experimental-features = nix-command flakes" >> /etc/nix/nix.conf
    - nix profile install nixpkgs#secp256k1
  script:
    - nix develop .#minimum -c gradle build run runEcdsa
  cache:
    key: "${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}"
    paths:
      - /nix/store
      - ~/.gradle/

I posted two comments on Issue #313216: Tracking Improve JDK infrastructure:

• Create Nixpkgs utility module/package that generates a Nix JDK Package Dashboard
• Create a JDK tester module for testing any/all Nixpkgs JDK builds

The dashboard module would be a good learning experience for me, so if I get halfway-positive feedback I'll probably attempt something. And I'd love to have a mentor or two to give me advice on it.

Here's my preliminary work on a Nix JDK Package Dashboard:

$ ./jdk-dashboard.sh  | jq
unpacking 'github:NixOS/nixpkgs/dab3a6e781554f965bde3def0aa2fda4eb8f1708' into the Git cache...
{
  "corretto11": "11.0.26.4.1",
  "corretto17": "17.0.14.7.1",
  "corretto21": "21.0.6.7.1",
  "openjdk11": "11.0.24",
  "openjdk17": "17.0.12",
  "openjdk21": "21.0.4",
  "openjdk24": "24.0.1",
  "semeru-bin-11": "11.0.23",
  "semeru-bin-17": "17.0.9",
  "semeru-bin-21": "21.0.3",
  "semeru-jre-bin-11": "11.0.23",
  "semeru-jre-bin-17": "17.0.9",
  "semeru-jre-bin-21": "21.0.3",
  "temurin-bin-23": "23.0.2",
  "temurin-bin-24": "24.0.1",
  "temurin-jre-bin-11": "11.0.27",
  "temurin-jre-bin-17": "17.0.15",
  "temurin-jre-bin-21": "21.0.7",
  "temurin-jre-bin-23": "23.0.2",
  "temurin-jre-bin-24": "24.0.1",
  "zulu11": "11.0.24",
  "zulu17": "17.0.12",
  "zulu21": "21.0.4",
  "zulu24": "24.0.1"
}

#!/bin/sh
nix-instantiate --eval --strict --json "$(dirname "$0")"/jdk-dashboard.nix