diff --git a/doc/builders/trivial-builders.chapter.md b/doc/builders/trivial-builders.chapter.md
index 4c0318a2541a..c3a3572cd9f4 100644
--- a/doc/builders/trivial-builders.chapter.md
+++ b/doc/builders/trivial-builders.chapter.md
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ Many more commands wrap `writeTextFile` including `writeText`, `writeTextDir`, `
 
 ## `writeShellApplication` {#trivial-builder-writeShellApplication}
 
-This can be used to easily produce a shell script that has some dependencies (`buildInputs`). It automatically sets the `PATH` of the script to contain all of the listed inputs, sets some sanity shellopts (`errexit`, `nounset`, `pipefail`), and checks the resulting script with [`shellcheck`](https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck).
+This can be used to easily produce a shell script that has some dependencies (`runtimeInputs`). It automatically sets the `PATH` of the script to contain all of the listed inputs, sets some sanity shellopts (`errexit`, `nounset`, `pipefail`), and checks the resulting script with [`shellcheck`](https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck).
 
 For example, look at the following code:
 
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ For example, look at the following code:
 writeShellApplication {
   name = "show-nixos-org";
 
-  buildInputs = [ curl w3m ];
+  runtimeInputs = [ curl w3m ];
 
   text = ''
     curl -s 'https://nixos.org' | w3m -dump -T text/html
diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/trivial-builders.nix b/pkgs/build-support/trivial-builders.nix
index 506f84310160..e0571632e760 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/trivial-builders.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/trivial-builders.nix
@@ -260,7 +260,7 @@ rec {
    * # Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path>/bin/my-file and makes executable.
    * writeShellApplication {
    *   name = "my-file";
-   *   buildInputs = [ curl w3m ];
+   *   runtimeInputs = [ curl w3m ];
    *   text = ''
    *     curl -s 'https://nixos.org' | w3m -dump -T text/html
    *    '';
@@ -269,7 +269,7 @@ rec {
   writeShellApplication =
     { name
     , text
-    , buildInputs ? [ ]
+    , runtimeInputs ? [ ]
     , checkPhase ? null
     }:
     writeTextFile {
@@ -282,7 +282,7 @@ rec {
         set -o nounset
         set- o pipefail
 
-        export PATH="${makeBinPath buildInputs}:$PATH"
+        export PATH="${makeBinPath runtimeInputs}:$PATH"
 
         ${text}
       '';