6.2 Using a Custom Guix Channel

The channel called guix specifies where Guix itself—its command-line tools as well as its package collection—should be downloaded. For instance, suppose you want to update from another copy of the Guix repository at example.org, and specifically the super-hacks branch, you can write in ~/.config/guix/channels.scm this specification:

;; Tell 'guix pull' to use another repo.
(list (channel
        (name 'guix)
        (url "https://example.org/another-guix.git")
        (branch "super-hacks")))

From there on, guix pull will fetch code from the super-hacks branch of the repository at example.org. The authentication concern is addressed below (see Channel Authentication).

Note that you can specify a local directory on the url field above if the channel that you intend to use resides on a local file system. However, in this case guix checks said directory for ownership before any further processing. This means that if the user is not the directory owner, but wants to use it as their default, they will then need to set it as a safe directory in their global git configuration file. Otherwise, guix will refuse to even read it. Supposing your system-wide local directory is at /src/guix.git, you would then create a git configuration file at ~/.gitconfig with the following contents:

[safe]
        directory = /src/guix.git

This also applies to the root user unless when called with sudo by the directory owner.