home-manager

My Nix configuration for macOS (nix-darwin + home-manager) and a Linux VPS profile.

What's in here

• flake.nix — entry point; defines the karolkozakowski darwin profile and the karolkozakowski-vps Linux profile
• darwin.nix — macOS system config (Homebrew taps/casks, nix-darwin settings)
• home.nix — macOS user packages and shell config
• home-vps.nix — Linux VPS user packages and shell config
• modules/shared.nix — packages and zsh config shared by both profiles
• nvim/ — Neovim configuration
• Makefile — switch, update, check, gc, etc.

Setup on a fresh macOS laptop

Assumes Apple Silicon (aarch64-darwin).

1. Install Nix

Use the Determinate Systems installer (handles flakes + uninstall cleanly):

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install

Open a new shell so nix is on PATH.

2. Clone this repo

The flake must live at ~/.config/home-manager (the Makefile and aliases assume that path):

mkdir -p ~/.config
git clone <this-repo-url> ~/.config/home-manager
cd ~/.config/home-manager

3. Adjust for your user (if you're not me)

The username karolkozakowski is hardcoded. If your macOS user is different, search-and-replace it in:

• flake.nix — darwinConfigurations."karolkozakowski" and home-manager.users.karolkozakowski
• darwin.nix — users.users.karolkozakowski and system.primaryUser
• home.nix — home.username, home.homeDirectory, and the PATH line in initContent
• Makefile — PROFILE := karolkozakowski

4. Bootstrap nix-darwin

There's no darwin-rebuild yet, so run it via nix:

sudo nix run nix-darwin -- switch --flake .#karolkozakowski

After this completes, /run/current-system/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild exists and the Makefile takes over.

5. Day-to-day

make switch         # apply current config
make update         # update flake inputs, then switch
make check          # build without activating
make gc             # garbage-collect old generations (>7 days)

The shared zsh config also exposes these as aliases: switch, update, clean, homemanager.

Setup on the Linux VPS

nix run home-manager/master -- switch --flake .#karolkozakowski-vps

After that, make switch works the same way (it detects Linux via uname).

Notes

• nixpkgs tracks nixpkgs-unstable.
• homebrew.onActivation.cleanup = "zap" — Homebrew packages not listed in darwin.nix will be removed on switch. Add casks/brews there, not via brew install directly.
• allowUnfree = true is set so things like claude-code and _1password-cli build.
• The MCP module comes from the mcps flake input (github:roman/mcps.nix).