parallel-cli-nix

Nix flake for parallel-cli — AI-powered web search, content extraction, and deep research from your terminal.

Not in nixpkgs. This flake packages the official pre-built binaries so you can use parallel-cli declaratively on NixOS, nix-darwin, and Home Manager without pointing to ~/.local/bin.

Quick Start

# Try it without installing
nix run github:SecBear/parallel-cli-nix -- search "your query" --json

# Install to your profile
nix profile install github:SecBear/parallel-cli-nix

Note: parallel-cli requires a Parallel API key. Run parallel-cli login after installation.

Using as a Flake Input

flake.nix

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    parallel-cli.url = "github:SecBear/parallel-cli-nix";
  };

  outputs = { nixpkgs, parallel-cli, ... }: {
    # Use with NixOS, nix-darwin, Home Manager, or devShells
  };
}

NixOS / nix-darwin

{ inputs, pkgs, ... }:
{
  environment.systemPackages = [
    inputs.parallel-cli.packages.${pkgs.system}.default
  ];

  nixpkgs.config.allowUnfreePredicate = pkg:
    builtins.elem (pkgs.lib.getName pkg) [ "parallel-cli" ];
}

Home Manager

{ inputs, pkgs, ... }:
{
  home.packages = [
    inputs.parallel-cli.packages.${pkgs.system}.default
  ];
}

Dev Shell

{
  devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
    buildInputs = [
      inputs.parallel-cli.packages.${system}.default
    ];
  };
}

Overlay

{
  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    inputs.parallel-cli.overlays.default
  ];

  # Then use pkgs.parallel-cli anywhere
}

Platforms

Platform	Architecture	Status
Linux	x86_64	Supported
Linux	aarch64	Supported
macOS	x86_64	Supported
macOS	aarch64 (Apple Silicon)	Supported

What is parallel-cli?

Parallel provides AI-powered web search and research APIs built for AI agents. The CLI gives you:

• search — web search with AI-powered relevance
• extract — pull clean markdown from any URL
• research — deep multi-source research on open-ended questions
• enrich — bulk data enrichment with web-sourced fields

parallel-cli search "nix flake best practices" --json --max-results 5
parallel-cli extract https://example.com
parallel-cli research "Compare Rust web frameworks in 2026"

How It Works

This flake packages the upstream PyInstaller-bundled standalone binary — no Python or pip required at runtime.

• Downloads platform-specific zip from GitHub Releases
• Installs the self-contained binary + _internal/ runtime bundle
• On Linux: autoPatchelfHook patches the dynamic linker
• On macOS: binary links to system dylibs (libSystem, libz) as-is
• SHA256 hashes pinned per-platform from upstream .sha256 files

Why unfreeRedistributable?

The upstream repo has no license file. The source code and binaries are publicly available on GitHub, but without an explicit license we mark it conservatively. You'll need allowUnfree or a predicate in your Nix config.

Updating

# Check for new versions
./scripts/update.sh

# Update to a specific version
./scripts/update.sh 0.0.15

The script fetches new SHA256 hashes and patches package.nix automatically.

Development

git clone https://github.com/SecBear/parallel-cli-nix
cd parallel-cli-nix

# Build
NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1 nix build --impure

# Test
./result/bin/parallel-cli --version

# Dev shell with parallel-cli available
NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1 nix develop --impure

Version Pinning

Pin to a specific commit for reproducibility:

inputs.parallel-cli.url = "github:SecBear/parallel-cli-nix/<commit-sha>";

Or use flake.lock (default behavior) — run nix flake update parallel-cli to pull the latest.

Related

• parallel-web-tools — upstream CLI and Python SDK
• parallel.ai — API docs and pricing
• codex-cli-nix — similar pattern for OpenAI Codex
• claude-code-nix — similar pattern for Claude Code

License

This Nix packaging is provided as-is. The upstream parallel-cli binary has no explicit license; see the upstream repository for details.