Haskell installation not installing compiler

[StefanoDeVuono]

What happened?

The instructions for a Haskell install indicate that the following:

  "packages": [
    "stack@latest",
    "cabal-install@latest",
    "zlib@latest",
    "hpack@latest"
  ]

will install GHC. It does not. And it's not clear what the best practice is for a Devbox user:

• install GHC via stack
• try adding "nix aware" flags to stack and cabal
• installing a nix package for ghcup and using that to install GHC

Thanks!

Steps to reproduce

1. > devbox add stack cabal-install zlib hpack
2. > devbox shell
3. > which ghc
4. > which stack (To verify installation of stack, which seems to work fine.)

Command

shell

devbox.json

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jetify-com/devbox/0.15.0/.schema/devbox.schema.json",
  "packages": [
    "stack@latest",
    "cabal-install@latest",
    "zlib@latest",
    "hpack@latest"
  ],
  "shell": {
    "init_hook": [
      "echo -ne \"\\033]0;📦 𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚋𝚘𝚡 - $(basename \"$PWD\")\\007\"",
      "echo 'Welcome to devbox!' > /dev/null"
    ],
    "scripts": {
      "test": [
        "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
      ]
    }
  },
  "env": {
     "PATH": "$DEVBOX_PROJECT_ROOT/.bin:$PATH",
     "STACK_ROOT": "$DEVBOX_PROJECT_ROOT/.stack",
     "CABAL_DIR": "$DEVBOX_PROJECT_ROOT/.cabal"
  }
}

Devbox version

0.15.0

Nix version

2.29.0

What system does this bug occur on?

macOS (Apple Silicon)

Debug logs

No response

[savil]

Looks like the linked example repo includes ghc as its own package: https://github.com/jetify-com/devbox/blob/main/examples/development/haskell/devbox.json

does that work for you? if so, the docs should be updated

[StefanoDeVuono]

@savil Yeah, installing GHC as its own package works, but might it be cleaner just to install GHCup? This aligns with how the docs advise a rust install be done (with rustup).