clo4's configuration

This is my dead-simple configuration. Maybe something to take inspiration from if you're getting stuck configuring your own Nix flake setup! I currently actively maintain my nix-darwin and standalone Home Manager configurations, but supporting NixOS or WSL would be as simple as adding another entry to hosts.

Traditional Nix system configuration requires a rebuild to apply, but I found that this was slowing me down and disincentivising me from changing things on my system. This time around, everything about the way my config is structured is to allow me to iterate raplidly:

• Home Manager symlinks my config to the right location. This results in the normal instant feedback loop of editing your dotfiles, but with the certainty that you can reapply it at any point exactly the same way it is now.
• The flake uses Blueprint, which gets rid of all the glue code I would otherwise need. Creating hosts is as simple as creating a directory in hosts, or making a package, creating a file in packages.

Program configuration is all stored in config.

My shared Home Manager config applies this configuration: users/robert/home-configuration.nix

This configuration is applied per-host with tweaks on top of it: hosts

Custom stuff

I keep finding yaks to shave.

• Fish is my interactive shell, but all initial environment setup is delegated to ZSH. This means the login shell is always guaranteed to be POSIX-enough to work, but I still get to benefit from using the best shell. I'm particularly proud that the $PATH works flawlessly on my Darwin systems, which has been a known issue with Fish + Nix.
• I implemented a Fish plugin manager in Nix for declarative plugins with imperative configuration. Plugins don't clutter up my config, nor can they accidentally clobber any files. Updates are done by updating the Nix plugin package definitions.
• This config uses mattwparas' fork of Helix with support for plugins, though I haven't set up or written any plugins yet. I had to fork it to get the Steel language server integration working. A build that uses this version and has working a working scheme language server for building plugins is available by running nix run github:clo4/nix-dotfiles#helix.
• Homebrew is installed automatically and managed declaratively with nix-homebrew
• Since fish is the best language for shell scripting, I wrote a custom command runner for fish functions. It replaces tools like just and common abuse of make. You just write fish functions in run.fish, then run them with run. This is also usable as nix run github:clo4/nix-dotfiles#run.
• My server hosts a Minecraft server using virtualisation.oci-containers with podman. The container is launched as root, but switched to a system user/group. Its data is stored in /srv/minecraft/family. It restarts every day at 4 am local-time. It has a DDNS client. I think this may be the best reference configuration for setting up a Minecraft server on NixOS.
• I built a simple DDNS client for Cloudflare to keep my DNS record up to date with my home internet's IP address. It's a simple Go program, it compiles quickly, it caches IP to minimise useless updates. The credentials are stored encrypted with Agenix. It's been moved into its own repository: clo4/clouddns

More of my custom things will be documented in the future.

Hosts

• macmini
  • This is my main dev machine. Most configuration will be up-to-date for it. It's a nix-darwin system that also configures my user using Home Manager.
• macbook-air
  • This is my secondary computer. It's owned by my partner, so I haven't installed nix-darwin. Instead, this is a standalone configuration.
• homeserver1
  • This is my personal server. It's a Minisforum NAB6 Lite running an Intel Core i5 12600, so it uses <9w at idle.
  • Hopefully not the first of many, but knowing me, it's best to start adding versioning to the names.

Building and switching

As a way to make sure I always get the commands right, there's a command runner included in the developer environment named run. Run run with no arguments to print the available commands.

Switching macmini and macbook-air will attempt to switch the currently active device, but switching homeserver1 will cause the server to rebuild and switch remotely, allowing the command to be run from whatever device is being used without an SSH connection. The only requirement is that Tailscale is up and connected.

run can be used from any shell, but is intended for use within Fish.

Bootstrapping homeserver1

This isn't included in run.fish because it has to be executed from the system itself or over SSH.

sudo nix --extra-experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' run github:clo4/nix-dotfiles/vps#homeserver1-install

Personal notes

Moving configuration directories

To migrate from one directory to another, create an exact copy of the configuration in the new destination without removing the existing configuration. Once created, edit the new configuration, changing my.config.directory to whatever the new path is. Now you can reapply the configuration from the new directory.