nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/development/meta-attributes.section.md

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# Meta Attributes {#sec-meta-attributes}
Like Nix packages, NixOS modules can declare meta-attributes to provide
extra information. Module meta attributes are defined in the `meta.nix`
special module.
`meta` is a top level attribute like `options` and `config`. Available
meta-attributes are `maintainers`, `doc`, and `buildDocsInSandbox`.
Each of the meta-attributes must be defined at most once per module
file.
```nix
{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:
{
options = {
...
};
config = {
...
};
meta = {
maintainers = with lib.maintainers; [ ericsagnes ];
doc = ./default.xml;
buildDocsInSandbox = true;
};
}
```
- `maintainers` contains a list of the module maintainers.
- `doc` points to a valid DocBook file containing the module
documentation. Its contents is automatically added to
[](#ch-configuration). Changes to a module documentation have to
be checked to not break building the NixOS manual:
```ShellSession
$ nix-build nixos/release.nix -A manual.x86_64-linux
```
- `buildDocsInSandbox` indicates whether the option documentation for the
module can be built in a derivation sandbox. This option is currently only
honored for modules shipped by nixpkgs. User modules and modules taken from
`NIXOS_EXTRA_MODULE_PATH` are always built outside of the sandbox, as has
been the case in previous releases.
Building NixOS option documentation in a sandbox allows caching of the built
documentation, which greatly decreases the amount of time needed to evaluate
a system configuration that has NixOS documentation enabled. The sandbox also
restricts which attributes may be referenced by documentation attributes
(such as option descriptions) to the `options` and `lib` module arguments and
the `pkgs.formats` attribute of the `pkgs` argument, `config` and the rest of
`pkgs` are disallowed and will cause doc build failures when used. This
restriction is necessary because we cannot reproduce the full nixpkgs
instantiation with configuration and overlays from a system configuration
inside the sandbox. The `options` argument only includes options of modules
that are also built inside the sandbox, referencing an option of a module
that isn't built in the sandbox is also forbidden.
The default is `true` and should usually not be changed; set it to `false`
only if the module requires access to `pkgs` in its documentation (e.g.
because it loads information from a linked package to build an option type)
or if its documentation depends on other modules that also aren't sandboxed
(e.g. by using types defined in the other module).