Variants of this appear repeatedly on #guix every now and then, and also sometimes unasked by me not posted anywhere. How do I run compile a package, computed-file or more generally a lowerable object from the REPL? Let's look in the manual: > Note that the ‘(guix monad-repl)’ module extends the Guile REPL with > new “meta-commands” to make it easier to deal with monadic > procedures: ‘run-in-store’, and ‘enter-store-monad’. The former is > used to “run” a single monadic value through the store: > > scheme@(guile-user)> ,run-in-store (package->derivation hello) > $1 = # ...> > Um, I want the actual store item, not the derivation, and I'm looking into lowering a non-package, let's look elsewhere: > As it turns out, the call to ‘package->derivation’ can even be > omitted since it will take place implicitly, as we will see later > (*note G-Expressions::): > > (define (sh-symlink) > (gexp->derivation "sh" > #~(symlink (string-append #$bash > "/bin/bash") > #$output))) > > Calling the monadic ‘sh-symlink’ has no effect. As someone once > said, “you exit a monad like you exit a building on fire: by > running”. So, to exit the monad and get the desired effect, one must > use ‘run-with-store’: > > (run-with-store (open-connection) (sh-symlink)) > ⇒ /gnu/store/...-sh-symlink Let's try this (using the REPL command): scheme@(guix-user)> ,run-in-store (plain-file "foo" "bar") While executing meta-command: Wrong type to apply: #< name: "foo" content: "bar" references: ()> doesn't work, let's try the 'lower-object' procedure which I vaguely recall to helped me out in the past but doesn't have any actual examples in the manual: scheme@(guix-user)> ,run-in-store (lower-object (plain-file "foo" "bar")) $15 = "/gnu/store/798sxvdgr0680czdggbls7rd3sfwk2yx-foo" This looks useful, let's try it for mixed-text-file: scheme@(guix-user)> ,run-in-store (lower-object (mixed-text-file "foo" "bar")) $17 = # /gnu/store/raihpcxdz6wmdpyj67bwd4bjk02xq0x3-foo 7f862e53f820> nooo there's the # again how do I get a compiled mixed- text-file from the REPL? (I mean I could use 'build-derivations' from (guix)The Store, but that accepts a list, not an individual derivation, and it doesn't accept strings according to the documentation so it cannot be used for the 'plain-file' and aren't derivations a super-low-level thing for which G-exps and such were intended to make the low level thing almost an implementation detail?) Seems like we are missing a general & documented & simple to use 'lower-object-completely' (or maybe 'compile-object'?) procedure for this ... And maybe also a ,build-object REPL command? Greetings, Maxime.