Nix Dotfiles

Modern, declarative configuration for macOS and Linux using Nix, with Fish shell, comprehensive package management, and Catppuccin theming throughout.

Shell, git, theming, and the common package set are shared. Window management diverges by platform: AeroSpace on macOS, Hyprland with Waybar on Linux.

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

# Clone and setup
git clone https://github.com/srizzling/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles && cd ~/.dotfiles

make bootstrap-personal    # or make bootstrap-work

Home Manager owns the user environment; system packages come from pacman, which bootstrap-linux installs for you.

make bootstrap-linux

make switch        # Apply configuration changes (macOS)
make switch-linux  # Apply configuration changes (Linux)
make update        # Update flake inputs and apply (macOS)
make rollback      # Rollback to previous generation (macOS)
make test          # Run all tests
make release       # Create new release

• Languages: per-project toolchains via devenv (see Development Environments)
• CLI Tools: git, gh, ripgrep, fd, fzf, jq, curl, wget, just
• Development: docker (via OrbStack), devenv, claude-code

• Shell: Fish with plugins, autosuggestions, git-emoji functions
• Terminal: Ghostty (GPU-accelerated)
• Prompt: Starship with Git integration
• Theme: Catppuccin Macchiato everywhere
• Tools: bat, lsd, htop, tree, zoxide, direnv

• Browser: Firefox
• Productivity: Raycast (Spotlight replacement, macOS)

• macOS: AeroSpace tiling window manager
• Linux: Hyprland with Waybar, dunst, and fuzzel

• Package Manager: Nix (50+ tools), plus brew-nix for macOS GUI apps and pacman for Linux system packages
• Configuration: Declarative Nix files + Home Manager
• Testing: Comprehensive Fishtape test suite (51 tests)

• Nix Darwin: System-level macOS configuration (Apple Silicon)
• Home Manager: User-level packages and dotfiles on both platforms — standalone on Linux, as a nix-darwin module on macOS
• Flakes: Pin dependencies for reproducible builds
• Multi-profile: personal and work on macOS; srizzling@BlueShell on Linux
• Shared modules: packages-common.nix and the shell/git/theme modules apply everywhere; packages-darwin.nix and packages-linux.nix hold the platform-specific sets
• Testing: All packages tested with Fish-based test runners

Every project under ~/development/personal/ and ~/development/work/ uses devenv — no bare shell.nix, no devbox.json, no version managers, and no globally installed toolchains standing in for project dependencies.

cd ~/development/personal/my-project
devinit          # scaffolds devenv.nix, devenv.yaml and .envrc, then direnv allow

devinit refuses to run outside those two directories, won't overwrite an existing devenv.nix, and warns if the project still carries a competing flake.nix, devbox.json or shell.nix.

Activation is automatic through direnv. Each project's .envrc is devenv's documented two-liner, which devinit writes for you:

eval "$(devenv direnvrc)"
use devenv

Both lines are needed. devenv and nix-direnv each define _nix_direnv_preflight, and direnv loads its lib directory alphabetically, so installing devenv's direnvrc globally lets nix-direnv override it and use devenv fails. Evaluating per-project runs after the libs and wins.

The rule is also stated in the generated ~/CLAUDE.md, so Claude follows it in any project.

Versions are derived from conventional commits; GitHub Actions publishes the release when the tag lands.

make release-notes   # Review what changed since the last tag
                     # Rewrite RELEASE_NOTES.md to describe it, then commit
make release         # Bump version, push the commit and the tag

A published release is RELEASE_NOTES.md followed by the auto-generated commit changelog grouped by scope — the written summary explains what the changes mean, the changelog records exactly what landed.

make release refuses to run when RELEASE_NOTES.md hasn't changed since the last tag, so a release can't silently inherit the previous one's summary. Override with make release SKIP_NOTES_CHECK=1 to publish with the changelog alone.

Everything except wip bumps: anything committed here reaches a machine on its next switch, so it's worth a version — including dependency updates, which gdepup/gdepdown record as chore. Only feat and breaking changes are cog defaults; the rest is configured in cog.toml.

A range of nothing but wip commits fails rather than reporting a release it didn't make; force one with make release BUMP=patch.

See CLAUDE.md for git-emoji commit conventions, release workflows, and development guidelines.