6.8 Package Modules in a Sub-directory

As a channel author, you may want to keep your channel modules in a sub-directory. If your modules are in the sub-directory guix, you must add a meta-data file .guix-channel that contains:

(channel
  (version 0)
  (directory "guix"))

The modules must be underneath the specified directory, as the directory changes Guile’s load-path. For example, if .guix-channel has (directory "base"), then a module defined as (define-module (gnu packages fun)) must be located at base/gnu/packages/fun.scm.

Doing this allows for only parts of a repository to be used as a channel, as Guix expects valid Guile modules when pulling. For instance, guix deploy machine configuration files are not valid Guile modules, and treating them as such would make guix pull fail.