NixOS-Configs/README.md

NixOS Configs

Reproducible multi-host NixOS + Hyprland ("Silicon Volt") configuration.

Install (new machine)

# Setup disks
nix run --experimental-features "nix-common flakes" github:nix-community/disko -- --mode disko --flake .#hades

# install configs
nixos-install --flake .#hades

# set password
nixos-enter --root /mnt -- passwd anish

Rebuild (existing machine)

rebuild switch   # zsh helper: sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake ~/NixOS-Configs#<host>

Adding a new host (e.g. a laptop)

1. Create hosts/<name>/ with default.nix, hardware-configuration.nix, and (optionally) disko.nix. Shared modules (modules/core, modules/graphical, modules/apps) are already pulled in by commonModules in flake.nix — the host only adds its own hardware/disko config.
2. Register it in flake.nix under nixosConfigurations.
3. Turn optional features on per machine via the shared my.* options:

# hosts/<name>/default.nix
my = {
  username = "anish";      # default; change for a different primary user
  gaming.enable = false;   # Steam, Gamemode, MangoHud
  ai.local.enable = false; # Ollama, ComfyUI, Open WebUI
  pi.enable = false;       # pi coding agent (home-manager)
};

4. Declare host-specific displays in hosts/<name>/default.nix:

home-manager.users.anish.hypr.monitors = [
  {
    output = "eDP-1";              # or "desc:<panel description>"
    mode = "2880x1800@120Hz";      # or "preferred"
    position = "auto";
    scale = 2;
    vrr = null;                    # optional per-monitor VRR
  }
  { output = ""; mode = "preferred"; position = "auto"; scale = "auto"; } # fallback
];

The hypr.monitors default (any output @ preferred) keeps every machine working out of the box; hosts override only what they need. Hosts without an NVIDIA GPU simply don't import modules/hardware/nvidia.nix — all vendor env vars live there, while the vendor-neutral hardware.graphics stack lives in modules/graphical.

Feature toggles (my.*)

Optional app modules are always imported (via modules/apps/default.nix) but only activate when a host sets the corresponding flag, so hosts never need to edit import lists:

Option	Enables
my.username	Primary user (users, home-manager, getty autologin)
my.flakeDir	Checkout path used by the rebuild helper and zshconf/hyprconf aliases
my.gaming.enable	Steam, Gamemode, MangoHud
my.ai.local.enable	Ollama (CUDA), ComfyUI, Open WebUI
my.pi.enable	pi coding agent (home-manager)

Hardware modules remain explicit imports per host (e.g. modules/hardware/nvidia.nix).

Theming

The Silicon Volt palette lives in one place, home/theme.nix, and is passed to every home-manager module through extraSpecialArgs. Tools that only accept a raw config file (starship, rofi, the herdr picker) carry @color@ placeholders that are substituted from the same palette at build time, so changing an accent means editing one file.

Editing configs: live vs generated

Most configs are generated from Nix and symlinked read-only from the store, so they need a rebuild switch to change:

• foot.ini, hyprlock.conf, hypridle.conf, mako/config, starship.toml, rofi/config.rasi, .zshenv/.zshrc (Nix attrs, themed)

Three configs are instead symlinked straight from the repo with mkOutOfStoreSymlink, so edits apply without a rebuild:

Live file	Applies on
home/hypr/hyprland.lua	hyprctl reload
home/hypr/quickshell/**	quickshell restart
home/nvim/config/** (incl. lazy-lock.json)	next nvim start; :Lazy update writes here

Because hyprland.lua is live, the palette and per-host monitors are emitted as generated fragments, ~/.config/hypr/theme.lua and ~/.config/hypr/monitors.lua, which the live file loads with dofile. Edit the Lua directly for anything else.

The tradeoff: live files are not part of the Nix closure, so the repo must exist at my.flakeDir for the symlinks to resolve, and uncommitted edits can drift from git. Keep them committed like any other tracked file.