История изменений

dry-build
        Show what store paths would be built or downloaded by any of the operations above, but otherwise do nothing.

dry-activate
        Build the new configuration, but instead of activating it, show what changes would be performed by the activation (i.e. by nixos-rebuild test). For instance, this command will print which systemd units would be restarted.  The list of changes is not guaranteed to be complete.

Да, даже два варианта в зависимости от потребностей.

Помимо этого еще есть build-vm, который конфиг не на систему катит, а виртуалку из него собирает.

dry-build
        Show what store paths would be built or downloaded by any of the operations above, but otherwise do nothing.

dry-activate
        Build the new configuration, but instead of activating it, show what changes would be performed by the activation (i.e. by nixos-rebuild test). For instance, this command will print which systemd units would be restarted.  The list of changes is not guaranteed to be complete.

Да, даже два варианта в зависимости от потребностей.