Strings are enclosed by double or two single quotes: "foo" ''foo'' Interpolation has only one form: nix-repl> foo = "strval" // special repl-only syntax assignment nix-repl> "${foo}" "strval" nix-repl> "${2+3}" error: cannot coerce an integer to a string, at (string):1:2 // need to call integer -> string explicit conversions Escaping ${...} within double quoted strings is done with the backslash. nix-repl> "\${foo}" "${foo}" Escaping ${...} within two single quotes is done with '': nix-repl> ''test ''${foo} test'' "test ${foo} test"