NixOS Configuration

A personal NixOS configuration repository managed with Flakes and Home Manager. Yes, another dotfiles repo — but at least this one is fully declarative and reproducible (in theory).

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Systems
• Home Manager Modules
• Applying the Configuration
  • NixOS (elendil)
  • macOS (mgengarelli)
  • macOS — Curunir (mgengarelli@curunir)
  • macOS — Mithrandir (massi@mithrandir)
• Customization
• License

Overview

This flake defines system configurations for multiple machines and a macOS home setup, all managed from one place. Overlays, custom packages, and various modules are included for convenience. The goal is to go from bare metal to a fully configured system with a single command.

Systems

Four configurations are defined:

• elendil — NixOS on a Microsoft Surface Pro (x86_64-linux). KDE Plasma 6, Fish shell, Docker, Steam, PipeWire, and the usual hardware tweaks to make everything work. Custom kernel: Zen-based kernel with Linux Surface patches, tuned for low latency and Surface hardware support (drivers for touchscreen, cameras, sensors, etc.). Defined in pkgs/kernel/. Cloud drives: OneDrive, ProtonDrive and Google Drive mounted at login via rclone systemd user services (home/elendil/default.nix).
• mgengarelli / work-darwin — macOS home + nix-darwin configuration (aarch64-darwin). GUI apps (Ghostty, Proton suite, etc., plus Mac App Store apps via mas) are managed declaratively through Homebrew via nix-darwin (system/work-darwin/); CLI tools and dotfiles stay in Home Manager (home/work-darwin/).
• massi@mithrandir — macOS home + nix-darwin configuration (aarch64-darwin) for a new MacBook Pro. GUI apps (Ghostty, Proton suite, Google Drive, Steam, WhatsApp, etc.) are managed declaratively through Homebrew via nix-darwin (system/mithrandir/); CLI tools and dotfiles stay in Home Manager (home/mithrandir/).
• mgengarelli@curunir — macOS home + nix-darwin configuration (x86_64-darwin) on a Surface Laptop 3 running OpenCore. Uses a pinned nixpkgs (nixos-26.05) because nixpkgs dropped x86_64-darwin support after that release. Overlays are disabled entirely because they reference packages built against nixpkgs-unstable and are ABI-incompatible with the older pinned set. GUI apps (Ghostty, Proton suite, etc.) are managed declaratively via Homebrew through nix-darwin; CLI tools stay in nixpkgs via Home Manager.

Home Manager Modules

This flake uses Home Manager to manage per-user configurations across systems.

Shells & Terminals

• fish — Fish shell with plugins and modern Unix utilities
• ghostty — Ghostty terminal emulator with custom keybindings

Editors & IDEs

• neovim — NeoVim with mini.nvim framework and LSP support
• opencode — OpenCode AI assistant with MCP servers

Development Tools

• devops — Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Azure CLI (kubectl, helm), K9s, Vault, Tanzu
• git — Git with Delta for diffs and custom aliases

Productivity & Communication

• firefox — Firefox with privacy policies and pre-configured extensions

Customization & Appearance

• fonts — Font management with monospace fonts, NerdFonts, and custom families

Applying the Configuration

NixOS (elendil)

Steps for a fresh NixOS installation:

1. Boot the minimal NixOS ISO from a USB stick.
2. Partition and format the disks as needed, then mount the root filesystem at /mnt.
3. Generate a hardware configuration:

   nixos-generate-config --root /mnt

4. Copy the generated hardware-configuration.nix into the appropriate system directory (e.g., system/elendil/).
5. Clone this repository to /mnt/etc/nixos or your preferred location.
6. Review and adjust the configuration for your hardware and preferences. Note: before the first switch, configure the rclone remotes with rclone config — the mount services use OneDrivePersonal, proton, and gdrive. The rclone-* systemd user services will fail to mount until those remotes exist.
7. Build and switch:

   nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#elendil

macOS (mgengarelli)

Home-manager + nix-darwin. GUI apps are managed by Homebrew through nix-darwin; CLI tools and dotfiles are managed by Home Manager.

darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#work-darwin  # nix-darwin + Homebrew
home-manager switch --flake .#mgengarelli    # dotfiles

Note: the system config decrypts a Cloudflare CA cert secret via agenix; it expects an age identity at /Users/mgengarelli/.age/key.txt.

macOS — Mithrandir (massi@mithrandir)

Home-manager + nix-darwin. GUI apps are managed by Homebrew through nix-darwin; CLI tools and dotfiles are managed by Home Manager.

darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#mithrandir       # nix-darwin + Homebrew
home-manager switch --flake .#"massi@mithrandir" # dotfiles

Note: Before the first darwin-rebuild switch, manually uninstall any Proton apps (VPN, Drive, Pass) already in /Applications — Homebrew will refuse to install a cask over an existing manual installation.

macOS — Curunir (mgengarelli@curunir)

Home-manager + nix-darwin. GUI apps are managed by Homebrew through nix-darwin; CLI tools and dotfiles are managed by Home Manager. Requires an existing OpenCore boot setup on x86_64 hardware (Surface Laptop 3).

Prerequisites

This configuration assumes VoltageShift is already installed and configured. VoltageShift is a macOS kernel extension (kext) that allows CPU undervolting and power limit tuning. It is not managed by Nix and must be set up manually:

1. Install the kext and binary — follow the instructions at VoltageShift. The binary must be at /usr/local/bin/voltageshift.
2. Add the kext to OpenCore — mount the EFI partition, add VoltageShift.kext to EFI/OC/Kexts/, and add a corresponding entry to your config.plist under Kernel → Add. See the VoltageShift README for the exact plist entry.

Once installed, home-manager handles the rest: a sleepwatcher agent runs on login and applies CPU power limits (voltageshift power 17 25) every time the machine wakes from sleep.

Applying

darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#curunir               # nix-darwin + Homebrew
home-manager switch --flake .#"mgengarelli@curunir"   # dotfiles

Note: Before the first darwin-rebuild switch, manually uninstall any Proton apps (VPN, Drive, Pass) already in /Applications — Homebrew will refuse to install a cask over an existing manual installation.

This configuration uses a pinned nixpkgs (nixos-26.05) because nixpkgs dropped x86_64-darwin support after that release. Overlays are disabled, so some packages (mcp-atlassian) use stubs.

Customization

This configuration is personal, but feel free to take inspiration. To adapt it for your own use:

1. Copy a system configuration directory (e.g., system/elendil/) and rename it
2. Update the hostname in the configuration files
3. Adjust hardware-configuration.nix for your hardware
4. Run nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#your-hostname

The key directories:

• system/ — NixOS system configurations per host.
• home/ — Home Manager modules (neovim, fish, firefox, and more).
• pkgs/ — Custom package overlays and definitions. Some packages are platform-conditional (e.g. mcp-atlassian is excluded on x86_64-darwin where its dependency tree is broken).
• lib/ — Shared utility functions.

License

See LICENSE for details.