[meatcar]

You can just not hook direnv into your shell, and use `direnv exec` kind of like pipx.

Tools like asdf, direnv, nix-shell, etc. just encapsulate the environment and help set up some guarantees. The referential transparency of shells is something that these tools help enforce, if anything.

I agree that frequent jumping between the fragmented environments is pain point in software development these days. That's due to a lack of tooling to support the new workflow, in my opinion. I hope enough people feel this pain that we see some solutions.

Having an expressive shell like https://starship.rs helps keep you oriented as a sort of HUD. Nix is definitely a life-saver, but you can probably roll your own nix-a-likes. Encapsulate all the "global" precious tools, hardening them against changes in the "local" shell environment. Whether through wrapper scripts, containerization, or what have you, the building blocks are there, the "best practices" are still being created.