jpetrucciani/nix

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Home Manager ​

Home Manager is a user-level module system for Nix. It lets you describe packages, dotfiles, shell setup, editor configuration, and user services declaratively, then build or switch that environment from one place.

It is useful when you want your user environment to be reproducible across machines, when you want package installs and config files to come from the same source, or when nix-env starts feeling too ad-hoc for day-to-day use.

home.nix is the main entry point into this repo's Home Manager module. If the repo is your day-to-day Nix environment, this is the file that turns the shared package set into a real user shell, toolchain, and editor setup.

What Home Manager Covers ​

  • User-scoped packages, instead of only system packages.
  • Program configuration such as shells, editors, Git, terminals, and prompt tooling.
  • Dotfiles and generated config files that should stay in sync with the package set.
  • User services and session-level behavior that do not belong in a full machine config.

Why This Repo Uses It ​

  • It gives the repo a portable user-environment layer that is separate from NixOS host definitions.
  • It is a natural place to consume the shared overlayed package set from default.nix.
  • It turns repo-local tools and wrappers into a daily driver instead of leaving them as build-only outputs.

What home.nix Does ​

  • Reuses the same overlays as the rest of the repo with nixpkgs.overlays = import ./overlays.nix.
  • Enables Home Manager itself and configures the core user environment.
  • Installs a large set of base tools, repo-local packages, and wrapper collections.
  • Switches behavior based on machine-name, platform, and a few environment signals.

Why It Matters ​

  • It is the closest thing this repo has to a daily-driver entry point.
  • It proves that the package and overlay layer is not just for machine builds.
  • It is where repo-specific tooling becomes something you actually live in.

If You Mainly Want Packages ​

Home Manager is broad. It is great when you want package installs, program config, dotfiles, and user services to live in one declarative layer.

If your goal is narrower, mostly "give me a light way to manage reproducible packages", mica is a much smaller starting point. It focuses on package selection and managed default.nix files, not the full Home Manager module surface.

What To Read In home.nix ​

  • The package list in home.nix, to see what the repo chooses to make first-class.
  • The mods/hms.nix and *_pog_scripts additions in home.nix, to see how wrappers become user tools.
  • The machine-name branching in home.nix, to see how one module adapts to different systems.
  • The programs.* sections in home.nix, to see ordinary Home Manager configuration layered on top.

Rebuild and Test ​

The repo's preferred interface is:

bash
hms

For an explicit host-targeted build or switch helper, see hms and hmx.