diff --git a/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/default.nix
index 206a9e35e4d1..f99c090eb975 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/default.nix
@@ -1,38 +1,32 @@
 { lib, buildGoModule, fetchFromGitHub }:
 
+let
+  srcInfo = builtins.fromJSON (builtins.readFile ./src.json);
+in
+
 buildGoModule rec {
   pname = "chroma";
   version = "0.9.4";
 
+  # To update:
+  # nix-prefetch-git --rev v${version} https://github.com/alecthomas/chroma.git > src.json
   src = fetchFromGitHub {
     owner  = "alecthomas";
     repo   = pname;
     rev    = "v${version}";
-    sha256 = "14jp6f83ca2srcylf9w6v7cvznrm1sbpcs6lk7pimgr3jhy5j339";
-    # populate values otherwise taken care of by goreleaser,
-    # unfortunately these require us to use git. By doing
-    # this in postFetch we can delete .git afterwards and
-    # maintain better reproducibility of the src.
-    leaveDotGit = true;
-    postFetch = ''
-      cd "$out"
-
-      commit="$(git rev-parse HEAD)"
-      date=$(git show -s --format=%aI "$commit")
-
-      substituteInPlace "$out/cmd/chroma/main.go" \
-        --replace 'version = "?"' 'version = "${version}"' \
-        --replace 'commit  = "?"' "commit = \"$commit\"" \
-        --replace 'date    = "?"' "date = \"$date\""
-
-      find "$out" -name .git -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf
-    '';
+    inherit (srcInfo) sha256;
   };
 
   vendorSha256 = "1l5ryhwifhff41r4z1d2lifpvjcc4yi1vzrzlvkx3iy9dmxqcssl";
 
   modRoot = "./cmd/chroma";
 
+  # substitute version info as done in goreleaser builds
+  ldflags = [
+    "-X" "main.version=${version}"
+    "-X" "main.commit=${srcInfo.rev}"
+    "-X" "main.date=${srcInfo.date}"
+  ];
 
   meta = with lib; {
     homepage = "https://github.com/alecthomas/chroma";
diff --git a/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/src.json b/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/src.json
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..9bfc8d9c2c73
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/tools/text/chroma/src.json
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+{
+  "url": "https://github.com/alecthomas/chroma.git",
+  "rev": "6520148857c2ae3106ff371e527abea815b23915",
+  "date": "2021-10-17T08:46:20+11:00",
+  "path": "/nix/store/0s8a46d1nyjl3yhsgni2jz5vdv95cka8-chroma",
+  "sha256": "1iy6mymdjxbl5wbll1mivv7gqdyqhl6xpfqps99z307m7y38r1ni",
+  "fetchLFS": false,
+  "fetchSubmodules": false,
+  "deepClone": false,
+  "leaveDotGit": false
+}