My dotfiles

A collection of my dotfiles that I check out on computers I own/use regularly. Managed by nix-darwin and home-manager.

macOS gets the full treatment: packages, Homebrew casks and system defaults. Linux gets the dotfiles only, via standalone home-manager.

Bootstrap a new machine

Both platforms start the same way:

curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --daemon
exec $SHELL -l
git clone https://github.com/<you>/dotfiles ~/.dotfiles

The first switch has to enable flakes by hand, because the setting that enables them permanently is itself inside the config.

macOS:

sudo nix run --extra-experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' \
  github:nix-darwin/nix-darwin/master#darwin-rebuild -- \
  switch --flake ~/.dotfiles#mac

Linux needs the env var rather than the flag: home-manager shells out to its own nix subprocesses, and they don't inherit command-line flags.

export NIX_CONFIG="experimental-features = nix-command flakes"
nix run home-manager/master -- \
  switch -b hm-bak --flake ~/.dotfiles#linux-$(uname -m)

That installs zsh but can't make it the login shell - /etc/passwd is outside what standalone home-manager manages. chsh also refuses any shell missing from /etc/shells, and a Nix-installed one won't be there, so it needs adding first:

command -v zsh | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s "$(command -v zsh)"

Nix only reads git-tracked files inside a flake repo, so commit any new file before switching or it will be invisible.

Apply changes

nix-rebuild is aliased to the right command for the platform:

nix-rebuild

Layout

File	Owns
flake.nix	Inputs, darwinConfigurations.mac, homeConfigurations.linux-*
darwin.nix	Packages (nixpkgs + homebrew) and macOS defaults. Not used on Linux
home.nix	Symlinks the config files below into $HOME, both platforms

The config files themselves stay plain: zshrc, gitconfig, tmux.conf, vimrc, vim/, hammerspoon/, lldbinit, ls_colors, and config/* for nvim, starship, ghostty and whosthere. They are linked out of the store, so editing them here takes effect immediately with no rebuild.

hammerspoon/ and Avatar.jpg are linked on macOS only. Commit signing is split into gitconfig-darwin and gitconfig-linux, since the 1Password signer sits at a different path on each, and gitconfig pulls the right one in through [include] path = ~/.gitconfig.os.