If something shows up in the store, and it's not clear why it's there, the T383838gc sub command for the T383838guix command has a referrers option that can figure out what wants it.

For example, I had some KDE stuff in my store:

guix gc --referrers /gnu/store/ylm2c9r071wyjbn3h46800qa8vpv7dna-kconfig-6.23.0

For something already built, the package name can be used in a call to build to yield the store path:

guix build kconfig

/gnu/store/ylm2c9r071wyjbn3h46800qa8vpv7dna-kconfig-6.23.0

These can be stacked just fine:

guix gc --referrers $(guix build kconfig)

Of course, if that T383838kconfig package wasn't already built, this would build it and put that file in the store.

For my specific problem, turns out, T383838fcitx5-configtool pulled that package in along with a bunch of other KDE stuff. I only need the configtool for the initial setup, once I've added my IMEs I don't need it anymore, so I removed the package and reconfigured my home, then collected garbage and deleted the old generations.

guix home reconfigure guix-home-config.scm

guix home delete-generations

ls -l /gnu/store/ylm2c9r071wyjbn3h46800qa8vpv7dna-kconfig-6.23.0

ls: cannot access '/gnu/store/ylm2c9r071wyjbn3h46800qa8vpv7dna-kconfig-6.23.0': No such file or directory

Tags: guix, cli

created: 2026-05-22

(re)generated: 2026-07-17