CLI Reference

Top-level Commands

tui, init, list, presets, add, remove, search, env, shell,
apply, unapply, update, pin, generations, export, index, sync, eval, diff

See full help:

mica --help

Common Commands

# initialize and launch
mica init
mica tui

# package management
mica add ripgrep fd
mica remove fd

# preset management
mica presets
mica apply rust
mica unapply rust

# search
mica search ripgrep
mica search rg --mode binary

Target Selection (--file, --global)

# operate on a specific managed nix file
mica --file ./default.nix list
mica --file ./default.nix diff
mica --file ./default.nix sync

# operate on the global profile
mica --global list
mica --global add ripgrep
mica --global generations list

Search Query Shortcuts

Shortcuts work in both CLI search and the TUI package search box:

• ' prefix means exact match
• bin: targets binary/main program names
• name: targets package/attr names
• desc: targets descriptions
• all: resets to mixed mode

Examples:

mica search "'bin:rg"
mica search "name:ripgrep"
mica search "'desc:fast grep"

Pinning

# update the primary nixpkgs pin
mica update --latest

# update a pinned package source
mica update nodejs --latest

Advanced pin workflows are available via:

mica pin --help

Index Operations

mica index status
mica index rebuild /tmp/nixpkgs.json
mica index rebuild-local ~/dev/jpetrucciani-nix --skip-attr home-packages,watcher --show-trace
mica index fetch

With index.remote_url set to a base URL, mica fetches <remote>/<nixpkgs_commit>.db; if it is missing, mica rebuilds locally.

Validation and Drift

mica eval
mica diff
mica sync
mica sync --from-nix

Global Profile

mica --global list
mica --global add ripgrep
mica --global generations list
mica --global generations rollback