If I do nar create --executable --os linux --arch x64 --node 6.9.2, then do mkdir -p new-dir/out && mv archive.nar new-dir && cd new-dir, and run ./archive.nar extract -o out I get
$ ls -la
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Dec 8 20:57 .nar
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22701019 Dec 8 20:40 archive.nar
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Dec 8 20:58 out
.nar is not included into the output directory.