❄️ Nobbmaestro's Nix Config ❄️

A fully declarative macOS development environment built on Nix flakes and nix-darwin. Organised with the dendritic pattern on top of flake-parts and import-tree — drop a .nix file in the right place and it's picked up automatically.

What's included

System (nix-darwin)

Layered under modules/system/darwin/:

• 0-base — core macOS system setup and app fixes
• 1-shell — system-level shell configuration
• 2-tools — system-level CLI tools
• 3-desktop — desktop settings, fonts, keyboard, security, and macOS defaults

Programs (home-manager)

Per-program modules under modules/programs/:

• Editor / shell: Neovim, Zsh, Starship, Tmux, Kitty
• Navigation: fzf, zoxide, yazi, eza
• Git workflow: Git, LazyGit, LazyDocker
• Window management: AeroSpace (i3-like tiling WM for macOS)
• Dev ergonomics: direnv, lazyhis

Package management

• Nix (via flakes)
• Homebrew (via nix-homebrew)

Repository layout

flake.nix                     # minimal entry point — imports ./modules via import-tree
modules/
├── nix/                      # flake-parts setup, home-manager & nix-homebrew integration
├── system/darwin/            # nix-darwin system layers (0-base … 3-desktop)
├── programs/                 # per-program home-manager modules
├── users/                    # per-user home-manager configs (norbertbatiuk, work)
└── hosts/                    # per-host darwin configs
    └── macbook-pro-m1/
        ├── configuration.nix # host-level config
        └── users/            # which users live on this host

With the dendritic pattern, every .nix file under modules/ is auto-imported — there is no central import list to maintain. flake.nix simply hands the tree to flake-parts.

Getting started

1. Install nix

Install nix from the official installer:

sh <(curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

or, simply run:

make install

2. Build the system

The following command will build and apply the full macOS configuration using nix-darwin:

make switch

This defaults to the macbook-pro-m1 host (see HNAME in the Makefile) and is equivalent to:

sudo darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#macbook-pro-m1

To target a different host, override HNAME:

make switch HNAME=<hostname>

The hostname must match a host defined under modules/hosts/.

3. Install git hooks

Run once after cloning to install the pre-commit formatter hook:

nix run .#install-hooks

Other useful targets

make check     # nix flake check
make update    # nix flake update
make clean     # nix-store --gc
make uninstall # remove nix-darwin

Adding a host or user

• New host: create modules/hosts/<hostname>/configuration.nix following the pattern in macbook-pro-m1, then add modules/hosts/<hostname>/users/<user>.nix binding files for each user on that host.
• New user: create modules/users/<user>/ with the user's home-manager config, then bind it to one or more hosts via the users/<user>.nix files above.

Resources

• Dendritic Nix
• Dendritic Design with the Flake Parts Framework
• Set up Nix on macOS using flakes, nix-darwin and home-manager
• Ultimate NixOS Desktop: Niri, Noctalia Shell, and the Dendritic Pattern | Full Setup
• NixOS & Flakes Book

Final Words

This very repository is intended for my personal usage. Breaking changes, change of utilities, or pattern may occur at any point.

Enjoy!