Problems finding files in devbox shell

What happened?

I try to use https://github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten Go game engine and followed the instructions.

To confirm the environment, one can run the following command: go run github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2/examples/rotate@latest

If I install go on my computer (Ubuntu) with all the required system dependencies and run go run github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2/examples/rotate@latest then it works.

If I remove Go from my computer, create a devbox environment, add Go package to it, open a devbox shell and then run the same command I get an error:

# github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2/internal/glfw
In file included from pkg/mod/github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2@v2.9.9/internal/glfw/native_linbsd.go:14:
./glfw3native_unix.h:105:12: fatal error: X11/Xlib.h: No such file or directory
  105 |   #include <X11/Xlib.h>
      |            ^~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

Steps to reproduce

Install system dependencies
add go to devbox environment
run a devbox shell
run go run github.com/hajimehoshi/ebiten/v2/examples/rotate@latest

Command

shell

devbox.json

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jetify-com/devbox/0.16.0/.schema/devbox.schema.json",
  "packages": ["curl@latest", "gettext@latest", "go@latest"],
  "env": {
    "GOPATH": "$PWD",
    "PATH": "$PATH:$PWD"
  },
  "shell": {
    "init_hook": ["echo 'Welcome to devbox!' > /dev/null"],
    "scripts": {
      "test": ["echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"]
    }
  }
}

Devbox version

0.17.2

Nix version

nix (Nix) 2.31.1

What system does this bug occur on?

Linux (x86-64)

Debug logs

No response

If you haven't figured this,

You need to install C compiler for that isolated dev environment i.e. devbox add gcc

Thanks for the recommandation.

It did not work unfortunately (I had tried already and retried just to be certain).

I also tried to install the libx11-dev package in the isolated dev enrironment but this package is not available.

Probably I could try to make a symlink to the file on the non isolated shell into the isolated shell, but I do not know how to do and this seems pretty clumsy.

Triage: unrelated, p3

This is expected behavior of a Nix-based environment, not a devbox bug. Inside devbox shell, cgo uses the Nix toolchain, which does not search the host's /usr/include. Installing libx11-dev with apt therefore has no effect. The X11/GL headers that ebiten needs have to come from Nix packages in devbox.json.

All of these resolve on the search index today (search.devbox.sh/v2/resolve): libx11, libxcursor, libxrandr, libxinerama, libxi, libxxf86vm, libGL, alsa-lib, pkg-config (the xorg.* names resolve too). The following should work, though I couldn't run the full ebiten build in my sandbox:

devbox add gcc pkg-config libx11 libxcursor libxrandr libxinerama libxi libxxf86vm libGL alsa-lib

If headers are still missing after that, please share the output of echo $NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE from inside the shell. It's possible the dev outputs aren't being included, which would be a devbox issue.

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Problems finding files in devbox shell #2829

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devbox.json

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Problems finding files in devbox shell #2829

Description

What happened?

Steps to reproduce

Command

devbox.json

Devbox version

Nix version

What system does this bug occur on?

Debug logs

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0xMurage commented on May 19, 2026

pluxain commented on May 20, 2026

mikeland73 commented on Sep 28, 2026

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