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The commuting schemes of an algebraic group or a Lie algebra play important roles in many areas of mathematics. They can be viewed as special cases of representation schemes, which are often highly singular. Derived algebraic geometry provides tools to remedy the deficiency. In particular, the derived representation scheme, together with its associated algebraic invariant known as representation homology, offers deeper insights into the structure of representation schemes. While the representation homology of reductive groups and reductive Lie algebras has been studied in the literature, it is natural to ask about the behavior of these objects and their relationships in the non-reductive setting. In this talk, I will discuss the derived commuting scheme of a maximal unipotent subgroup of a semisimple group scheme, as well as the derived commuting scheme of its Lie algebra. First, the higher structure of the derived commuting scheme detects whether the underlying commuting scheme is a complete intersection. Unlike the reductive case, the derived commuting scheme of a unipotent subgroup is equivalent to that of its Lie algebra. Using an analogue of the trace map, most of the homology classes can be explained in terms of the classical cohomology of a maximal nilpotent Lie algebra, described via the root system of the semisimple Lie algebra. This could be interpreted that the singularities of the commuting scheme of a maximal nilpotent subalgebra are largely determined by root system data. If time permits, I will also discuss a possible nilpotent analogue of the Macdonald identity, together with an interpretation in terms of representation homology.