NixOS configuration

Personal NixOS flake with home-manager. One host (nixos), multiple Wayland compositors, and shared home-manager modules for apps and shell tooling.

Layout

.
├── flake.nix              # Flake inputs and nixosConfigurations.nixos
├── vars.nix               # Shared settings (username, desktop, paths, git)
├── vars.local.nix.example # Template for machine-local overrides (gitignored)
├── hosts/nixos/           # Host entry point
├── hardware/              # Machine hardware and storage
├── modules/nixos/         # System modules (boot, greeter, locale, services, …)
├── desktops/<name>/       # Per-compositor nixos.nix + home/ modules
├── home/                  # Shared home-manager config (programs, shell, editors)
└── lib/                   # Small helpers (desktops, fluxer wrapper)

The active compositor is selected in vars.desktop. Only that desktop's desktops/<name>/nixos.nix is imported at build time, so switching desktops does not pull every compositor into the closure.

Supported values: niri, hyprland, sway, labwc, mango, plasma.

Configuration

Edit vars.nix for values you are happy to commit. For machine-specific overrides, copy vars.local.nix.example to vars.local.nix (gitignored):

{
  desktop = "hyprland";
}

If the checkout is not at ~/nixos, set NIXOS_CONFIG to its path before rebuilding so vars.local.nix is found.

Important vars fields:

Field	Purpose
desktop	Active compositor session
git	Git identity and signing key id
gpgPrivateKey	Path to a private key file imported on activation
noctaliaI18nPushSecretFile	Path to the i18n push token file (loaded into fish at login)

Noctalia

Noctalia Shell and the greeter use path: flake inputs to local dev checkouts — they will not work if you clone this repo. Use the noctalia and noctalia-greeter flakes instead.

After editing either checkout, update the lock before switching or Nix will rebuild from a stale snapshot:

nix flake update noctalia noctalia-greeter
nh os switch ~/nixos

Desktop sessions

Non-Plasma desktops use greetd with Noctalia Greeter. Plasma uses its own display manager via desktops/plasma/nixos.nix.

Greeter settings are fully declared in modules/nixos/greeter.nix and installed to /var/lib/noctalia-greeter/greeter.toml on activation. Cursor theme uses programs.noctalia-greeter.settings.cursor.

Niri (default) has the most complete setup: keybinds, window rules, animations, autostart, and a noctalia.kdl include so Noctalia's Niri template is loaded from ~/.config/niri/noctalia.kdl.

Other compositors (hyprland, sway, labwc, mango) ship stub home modules with Noctalia autostart and basic keybinds. mango also defines a custom greetd session.

Shared Wayland session defaults (Electron on X11, Qt on Wayland, cursor theme) live in desktops/shared/home.nix.

Home manager

home/default.nix always imports shared desktop settings plus desktops/<desktop>/home, then program modules:

• Shell: fish (tide), microfetch greeting
• Apps: Firefox, Ghostty, Fluxer, Vesktop, Spicetify, VS Code, Doom Emacs
• Git: commit signing, GPG agent (pinentry-curses)

Doom Emacs lives in home/doom/, copied to ~/.config/doom on activation

Flake inputs

Input	Use
nixpkgs	Base packages (unstable)
home-manager	User environment
niri	Niri compositor + HM module
fluxer	Fluxer Canary package
spicetify-nix	Spotify theming
nur	NUR overlay
doomemacs	Doom Emacs source (flake = false)
waytator	Screenshot annotator (ItsLemmy/waytator)
noctalia	Noctalia Shell (path: input)
noctalia-greeter	Login greeter (path: input)

Rebuild

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .

Format:

nix fmt

Notes

• GPG signing expects gpgPrivateKey to exist at activation time.
• Fluxer autostart is handled by the compositor (niri spawn-at-startup), not XDG autostart, to avoid a broken self-written desktop entry.