| Nix evaluator | | Nix store |
| .----------------. | | |
| | Nix expression | | | |
| '----------------' | | |
| | | | |
| evaluate | | |
| | | | |
| V | | |
| .------------. | | |
| | derivation | | | .------------------. |
| | expression |----|-instantiate-|->| store derivation | |
| '------------' | | '------------------' |
| | | | |
| | | realise |
| | | | |
| | | V |
| .----------------. | | .--------------. |
| | Nix expression |<-|----read-----|----| store object | |
| '----------------' | | '--------------' |
| | | | |
| evaluate | | |
| | | | |
| V | | |
| .------------. | | |
| | value | | | |
| '------------' | | |
+----------------------+ +------------------------+
```
In more detail, the following sequence diagram shows how the expression is evaluated step by step, and where evaluation is blocked to wait for the build output to appear.
```
.-------. .-------------. .---------.
|Nix CLI| |Nix evaluator| |Nix store|
'-------' '-------------' '---------'
| | |
|evaluate IFD.nix| |
|--------------->| |
| | |