OceanSprint 2025: Code, Community, and the Canary Islands

April 1, 2025

“What’s the point of having a house on the beach if you don’t share it?” — Nejc Zupan

That quote perfectly captures the spirit of OceanSprint 2025. Over five days in the sun-soaked paradise of Lanzarote, contributors from across the Nix ecosystem came together not just to write code, but to share ideas, meals, stories, and a few ocean waves. This wasn’t your average tech event—it was a gathering built on openness, curiosity, and collaboration.

🧠 The Idea

OceanSprint isn’t just a hackathon. It’s a gathering of the Nix ecosystem’s most passionate contributors—people who want to push forward the future of functional, declarative, reproducible systems. The concept is simple: bring brilliant folks together in a beautiful place, give them time, space, and good food—and let the magic happen.

It’s not about keynotes or big releases; it’s about focused collaboration, writing code, exchanging ideas, and solving real problems. And sometimes, just understanding each other a little better.

People hacking on the deck of Niteo House

🏝️ The Island

This year’s sprint took place on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands. With its volcanic terrain, warm breezes, and endless coastline, it’s the kind of place that quietly resets your brain. The black sands and rugged beauty are unlike anywhere else—and somehow, that uniqueness echoed in the work we did together.

It was the perfect backdrop: inspiring, a little wild, and totally disconnected from the chaos of everyday life.

🏡 The Venue

Our home base was a spacious villa in Costa Teguise, with enough room for laptops, long discussions, breakout sessions, and yes—BBQs. Fiber internet kept things moving fast, while the patio and shared meals helped slow things down.

We hacked under palm trees, fixed bugs while barefoot, and shared ideas in the pool. It was part office, part playground, part think tank. Just right.

🧑‍💻 The People

The real heart of OceanSprint was the people. Contributors came from across the Nix ecosystem—including Nix, Lix, Tvix/Snix, and more. Despite recent tensions and forks in the community, what we witnessed here was nothing short of inspiring: constructive conversations, open minds, and a genuine spirit of collaboration.

Different visions coexisted, and discussions were respectful, curious, and grounded in a shared belief in the power of reproducibility. It reminded us that open source isn’t about agreement—it’s about dialogue.

'Days since last fork: 3' written on a whiteboard. The work 'fork' is crossed and replaced with 'downstream distribution'

🖥️ The Gadgets

Let’s talk peripherals. OceanSprint was a hardware enthusiast’s dream.

@multivac61 brought along a GPD Pocket 4—a surprisingly powerful mini laptop with a high-quality build that turned heads.
@flokli typed away on a BastardKB Dilemma V3 split keyboard, powered by a custom Nix-based config now open sourced at flokli/keyboards.
@adisbladis had the most unique setup: a Surface tablet mounted on a tripod for a display, paired with a mechanical keyboard (likely a Keychron) and a RollerMouse Go—minimalist yet efficient.
@adrian-gierakowski used a wooden Cornat C10 mechanical keyboard with a wonderfully tactile sound and layout.

Whether for comfort, efficiency, or sheer geek factor, the gear people brought added a fun and personal flair to the sprint atmosphere.

🏄️ The Excursions

The sprint wasn’t all terminal windows and commits. We made space to explore the island too. There were:

Surfing lessons at Famara Beach 🌊
A hike to the top of a volcano, with sweeping views over Costa Teguise 🌋
Winery tours, learning about Lanzarote’s unique vine-growing techniques 🍷
Traditional paella lunches, sunset walks, and impromptu bike rides

These moments helped us unwind, connect, and return to our work with fresh eyes.

I, standing on Famara Beach, with a wet suit on, reading for surf lessons

🛠️ The Projects

OceanSprint 2025 was buzzing with progress. Here are just a few of the many exciting things people worked on:

NixOS module system enhancements – New functions for error handling and module introspection.
Devenv 1.5 improvements – Faster dev environments, overlays, and AI support.
Inception of Snix – Started as a downstream distribution of Tvix, people worked on infrastructure, documentation, and overlay store functionality.
NixOS test driver fixes – Better error messages and macOS support.
FOD tracker prototype – Monitoring over 350k fixed-output derivations.
Supply chain security tooling – With nix-attest, laut, and lila.
Bashless NixOS init – Aiming for simpler, cleaner system bootstrapping.
Clang-built Linux kernel – Successfully compiled with LLVM/Clang.

Read more about the projects in the full OceanSprint 2025 Report.

💖 Gratitude

We owe a huge thank you to our amazing sponsors. Your support covered nearly everything—venue, meals, excursions, and the environment that made all this possible. You made it easy for people to focus, collaborate, and just be present.

Thank you to: Numtide, Mercury, Secunet, Clan.lol, Shopify, NixOS Foundation, Nixcademy, Cyberus Technology, Flox, flyingcircus.io, Supercede, Cachix, and Pareto Security. If you’re looking for a career in the NixOS space, you should definitely check out the sponsor’s job pages.

A special thank you to Nejc Zupan and Domen Kožar for their warm hospitality and exceptional organization. You brought this incredible community together and made it feel like home.

You didn’t just support an event. You invested in a community—and it made all the difference.

The back of the OceanSprint 2025 t-shirt with a list of all the sponsors

🌅 Until Next Time

We came as contributors. We leave as collaborators, friends, and builders—full of ideas and energy for what’s next in the Nix world. OceanSprint 2025 was a reminder that open source is more than code. It’s people, place, and purpose.

See you at the next one.