diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/li/libcava/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/li/libcava/package.nix
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..4bb2d772936c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/li/libcava/package.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+{
+  cava,
+  fetchFromGitHub,
+  nix-update-script,
+  meson,
+  ninja,
+}:
+cava.overrideAttrs (old: rec {
+  pname = "libcava";
+  # fork may not be updated when we update upstream
+  version = "0.10.3";
+
+  src = fetchFromGitHub {
+    owner = "LukashonakV";
+    repo = "cava";
+    tag = version;
+    hash = "sha256-ZDFbI69ECsUTjbhlw2kHRufZbQMu+FQSMmncCJ5pagg=";
+  };
+
+  nativeBuildInputs = old.nativeBuildInputs ++ [
+    meson
+    ninja
+  ];
+
+  # Automatically enable all optional dependencies
+  # (instead, Nix sets this option to "enabled" which
+  # forces all optional dependencies to be required
+  # or disabled individually)
+  mesonAutoFeatures = "auto";
+
+  dontVersionCheck = true; # no `bin/cava`
+  passthru.updateScript = nix-update-script { };
+
+  meta = old.meta // {
+    homepage = "https://github.com/LukashonakV/cava";
+    description = "Fork of CAVA to build it as a shared library";
+  };
+})
diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/wa/waybar/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/wa/waybar/package.nix
index 1d8bd84bd2c1..51ec93c1bc08 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/wa/waybar/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/wa/waybar/package.nix
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
   hyprland,
   iniparser,
   jsoncpp,
+  libcava,
   libdbusmenu-gtk3,
   libevdev,
   libinotify-kqueue,
@@ -74,15 +75,6 @@
   waybar,
 }:
 
-let
-  # Derived from subprojects/cava.wrap
-  libcava.src = fetchFromGitHub {
-    owner = "LukashonakV";
-    repo = "cava";
-    rev = "0.10.3";
-    hash = "sha256-ZDFbI69ECsUTjbhlw2kHRufZbQMu+FQSMmncCJ5pagg=";
-  };
-in
 stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
   pname = "waybar";
   version = "0.11.0";