The DocBook sources of the Nixpkgs manual are in the doc subdirectory of the Nixpkgs repository. You can quickly check your edits with make: $ cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc $ nix-shell [nix-shell]$ make $makeFlags If you experience problems, run make debug to help understand the docbook errors. After making modifications to the manual, it's important to build it before committing. You can do that as follows: $ cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc $ nix-shell [nix-shell]$ make clean [nix-shell]$ nix-build . If the build succeeds, the manual will be in ./result/share/doc/nixpkgs/manual.html.