TL;DR

After two weeks with Mise I’ve switched from per‑project flake.nix files, with direnv to a mise.toml. Mise now boots the right Node, Python, and whatever‑else versions, wires up my env vars, and even runs project tasks. It fit in with my current nix setup via Home Manager.

The Why

I like trying out new tools. Not for productivity reasons, although that’s a reason, but because I like learning new things. The last new thing I picked up was using Nix and flakes alongside direnv. I’m also a sucker for rust tools like uv and zellij. Everyone seems to be rewriting or writing cool cli tools in rust.

The Short List of Reasons I Switched

  • Speed – Shims are instant and installs are pretty fast
  • Tasks Built‑In – No separate justfile. I used to sprinkle justfiles when I need them but I don’t have to reach for another tool with the mise tasks.
  • Automatic Installs – Install happen when I cd into a directory.
  • .env Support - What’s not to like.
  • Nix Friendly – Home Manager ships a programs.mise module, so, it was easy to integrate into my existing setup.

My Home Manager Snippet

Here’s my home manager config. I won’t go into detail about Nix or Home Manager here. You should check those projects out. You can extract the globalConfig block and use that in toml format for your ~/.config/mise/config.toml file.

programs.mise = {
  enable = true;
  enableZshIntegration = true;
  globalConfig = {
    tools = {
      node = "lts";
      python = "3.13";
    };
    settings = {
      always_keep_download = false;
      always_keep_install = false;
      plugin_autoupdate_last_check_duration = "1 week";
      trusted_config_paths = [ "~/workspace" ];
      not_found_auto_install = true;
      env_file = ".env";
      python.uv_venv_auto = true;
    };
  };
};

Day‑to‑Day Workflow

  1. Clone Repo

    git clone [email protected]:cool/new-thing.git
cd new-thing   # mise activates

  2. Runtimes Install Automatically
    When you cd into the directory, if it has a mise.toml or .env, Mise will setup automatically. If you’re familiar with pyenv, nvm, rubyenv, etc. this is similar to that.

  3. Tasks Replace Scripts
    My mise.toml might include:

    [tasks]
dev = {run = "bun run dev"}
lint = {run = "eslint ."}
build = {depends = ["lint"], run = "bun build"}

    Now mise run build will lint and build in one go. You can get creative and chain them together, or even run them in parallel. a good example is running backend and frontend code together with mise run dev and it will run backend-dev and frontend-dev in parallel.

     [tasks]
 backend-dev = {run = "cd backend && npm run dev"}
 frontend-dev = {run = "cd frontend && mvn spring-boot:run"}
 dev = {depends = ["backend-dev", "frontend-dev"]}

  4. Private Stuff
    Anything machine‑specific lives in mise.local.toml (git‑ignored). I keep things like secrets, and local only tasks there (don’t blame me, some things I like to keep private :D)

Tips & Tricks

  • Use .env + env_file – Mise reads variables automatically; this replaces direnv allow.
  • Leverage Legacy Files – It respects .nvmrc, .tool-versions, and even .python-version, so you can mix and match when working with others.
  • Set Up Aliases - I use alias m="mise" for quick access. Just like k for kubectl.

Final Thoughts

Two weeks is not much time, but I’m pretty much sold. Give it a try.

Thanks for reading :D
-Pachev