nix-profiles(5)               File Formats Manual              nix-profiles(5)

   Profiles
       A directory that contains links to profiles managed by nix-env and nix
       profile:

       o  $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles for regular users
       o  $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root if the user is root

       A profile is a directory of symlinks to files in the Nix store.

   Filesystem layout
       Profiles are versioned as follows. When using a profile named path,
       path is a symlink to path-N-link, where N is the version of the
       profile.  In turn, path-N-link is a symlink to a path in the Nix store.
       For example:

       $ ls -l ~alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile*
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 14 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile -> profile-7-link
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 28 16:18 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-5-link -> /nix/store/q69xad13ghpf7ir87h0b2gd28lafjj1j-profile
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 29 13:20 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-6-link -> /nix/store/6bvhpysd7vwz7k3b0pndn7ifi5xr32dg-profile
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link -> /nix/store/mp0x6xnsg0b8qhswy6riqvimai4gm677-profile

       Each of these symlinks is a root for the Nix garbage collector.

       The contents of the store path corresponding to each version of the
       profile is a tree of symlinks to the files of the installed packages,
       e.g.

       $ ll -R ~eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/
       /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/:
       total 20
       dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan  1  1970 bin
       -r--r--r-- 2 root root 1402 Jan  1  1970 manifest.nix
       dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan  1  1970 share

       /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/bin:
       total 20
       lrwxrwxrwx 5 root root 79 Jan  1  1970 chromium -> /nix/store/ijm5k0zqisvkdwjkc77mb9qzb35xfi4m-chromium-86.0.4240.111/bin/chromium
       lrwxrwxrwx 7 root root 87 Jan  1  1970 spotify -> /nix/store/w9182874m1bl56smps3m5zjj36jhp3rn-spotify-1.1.26.501.gbe11e53b-15/bin/spotify
       lrwxrwxrwx 3 root root 79 Jan  1  1970 zoom-us -> /nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927/bin/zoom-us

       /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/share/applications:
       total 12
       lrwxrwxrwx 4 root root 120 Jan  1  1970 chromium-browser.desktop -> /nix/store/4cf803y4vzfm3gyk3vzhzb2327v0kl8a-chromium-unwrapped-86.0.4240.111/share/applications/chromium-browser.desktop
       lrwxrwxrwx 7 root root 110 Jan  1  1970 spotify.desktop -> /nix/store/w9182874m1bl56smps3m5zjj36jhp3rn-spotify-1.1.26.501.gbe11e53b-15/share/applications/spotify.desktop
       lrwxrwxrwx 3 root root 107 Jan  1  1970 us.zoom.Zoom.desktop -> /nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927/share/applications/us.zoom.Zoom.desktop

       <?>

       Each profile version contains a manifest file: - manifest.nix used by
       nix-env.  - manifest.json used by nix profile (experimental).

   User profile link
       A symbolic link to the user's current profile:

       o  ~/.nix-profile
       o  $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile if use-xdg-base-directories is set to
          true.

       By default, this symlink points to:

       o  $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile for regular users
       o  $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root/profile for root

       The PATH environment variable should include /bin subdirectory of the
       profile link (e.g. ~/.nix-profile/bin) for the user environment to be
       visible to the user.  The installer sets this up by default, unless you
       enable use-xdg-base-directories.

                                                               nix-profiles(5)