Where are the docs?

[nh2]

The README says https://github.com/NixOS/nixops-aws/blame/ce9e0ae63981c5c727a688eec5c314e38694eba2/README.md#L31

Documentation for the `nixops-aws` plugin is in the [nixops repo](https://github.com/NixOS/nixops)

but the manual linked from https://github.com/NixOS/nixops, which is currently https://hydra.nixos.org/build/115931128/download/1/manual/manual.html, does not document any ec2 options.

[pwaller]

@edolstra and anyone else who is interested -- first off, thanks for all your work bringing the nix universe into existence, which is amazing.

I've come back to this specific repository several times over the years, but every time stumbled when it comes to trying anything out because I could not find the 'resource reference' explaining what I could describe using nixos-aws and how to do it. I suspect this is a significant barrier to adoption.

Even a link to the examples or the nix directory might help quite a bit, but I'm still a bit confused when it comes to how one is expected to use this. The linked documentation is not helpful as a newcomer. There is a large amount of vertical space dedicated to release notes which make the documentation seem longer than it is; the documentation which is there only describes deploying machines but clearly it looks possible to deploy other resources.

At the moment I don't understand how to answer basic questions such as "how do I deploy a resource?", "when, if ever will nixops delete a resource which contains data I care about"? "What happens when something goes wrong? Is it always meant to be safe to rerun?" The primary commands as documented only seem to talk about machines, but I'm interested in deploying other infrastructure like vpcs, etc.

I think the most important thing which is missing is some sort of quickstart/workflow overview. It should cover creating a machine and a resource. Is the primary workflow something like: 1: Make a configuration. 2: Deploy it. 3: Update configuration. 3: Deploy it. 5+: Repeat. ∞: Delete your resources? At the moment the 'how to use it' links and overview explain "To deploy to a machine that is already running NixOS, ..." which appear to presuppose you have already deployed a machine, which I understood to be the purpose of nixops?

Thanks again and all the best. I'm quite interested to give this a go some day if I can figure out how :)

[teto]

I am trying to dive in in nixops again after 2/3 years again, the AWS plugin for work (used to use libvirtd) and even though I have some experience with nixops, I find it hard to get a valid nix expression, even the examples are atreacherous with things like ec2defaults ? import <mychannel/utils/ec2/defaults> {}.

Also I dont get if nixops-aws handles resources lifecycle/provisioning or if I should create them myself with eg. pulumi/terraform/CDK.