Improve NixOS support

[misumisumi]

Feature description

I'm glad to have contributed to the support for NixOS last time.
Since then, we have been able to operate it stably for several months.
However, previous support did not provide an option to place lazy-lock.json under .config/nvim.
This is because NixOS places it as read-only, which means it cannot be updated with :Lazy.
Fortunately, we were able to create a workflow that updates lazy-lock.json by following upstream in a forked repository based on update_lockfile.yml, so the above problem will be alleviated.
I provide bind support in terms of the NixOS ethos of strongly anchoring the environment.

Also, last time it was provided as nixosModules, but since it actually only works with home-manager, we changed it to homeManagerModules. (breaking change)
This is because I didn't know about the existence of homeManagerModules last time.

Additional information

• example merge upstream and update lazy-lock workflow
  In the example, I create a PR instead of just pushing it to main

name: auto merge upstream
on:
  workflow_dispatch: # allows manual triggering
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 19 * * 5" # runs weekly on Saturday at 04:00 (JST)

permissions:
  contents: write
  pull-requests: write
jobs:
  auto-merge-upstream:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: andstor/file-existence-action@v3
        id: check_lockfile
        with:
          files: "lazy-lock.json"

      - name: Merge upstream
        id: merge-upstream
        continue-on-error: true
        run: |
          git config --global user.email "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
          git config --global user.name "github-actions[bot]"

          git remote add upstream https://github.com/ayamir/nvimdots.git
          git fetch upstream
          git merge upstream/main --allow-unrelated-histories --no-commit --no-ff

          git reset HEAD lazy-lock.json
          git reset HEAD .github/workflows/update_lockfile.yml

          git checkout lazy-lock.json
          git checkout .github/workflows/update_lockfile.yml

      - name: Run count-new-commits
        run: |
          echo "NEW_COMMIT_COUNT=$(git log --oneline --since '24 hours ago' --perl-regexp --author='^((?!github-actions).*)$' | wc -l)" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"

      - uses: rhysd/action-setup-vim@v1
        if: ${{ steps.check_lockfile.outputs.files_exists == 'true' && env.NEW_COMMIT_COUNT > 0 }}
        with:
          neovim: true

      - name: Run lockfile-autoupdate
        if: ${{ steps.check_lockfile.outputs.files_exists == 'true' && env.NEW_COMMIT_COUNT > 0 }}
        timeout-minutes: 5
        run: |
          ./scripts/install.sh
          nvim --headless "+Lazy! update" +qa
          cp -pv "${HOME}/.config/nvim/lazy-lock.json" .

      - uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v6
        if: >-
          ${{
            (
              steps.check_lockfile.outputs.files_exists == 'true' &&
              env.NEW_COMMIT_COUNT > 0
            ) ||
            steps.merge-upstream.outcome == 'success'
          }}
        with:
          token: ${{ github.token }}
          commit-message: "chore: auto merge upstream and update lazy-lock.json"
          title: "chore: auto merge upstream and update lazy-lock.json"
          branch: "merge_upstream_and_update_lazy_lock_action"
          labels: |
            dependencies
            automated

[charliie-dev]

im currently trying home manager on arch and ubuntu lol

[charliie-dev]

do u have some materials on how pull a git repo to certain location via home manager? or do i have to do it via some nix scripts?

[misumisumi]

If you are using flakes.nix, you can use nvimdots.url = "github:misumisumi/nvimdots/improve-nixos"; in inputs.

[charliie-dev]

will this keep it self a valid git repo that i can do git push/pull regularly or it will become a read-only symlink from nix store?

for example, i still want to do normal git push/pull in ~/.config/nvim.

[misumisumi]

will this keep it self a valid git repo that i can do git push/pull regularly or it will become a read-only symlink from nix store?

become a read-only symlink from nix store.

[misumisumi]

I misunderstood my intentions.

do u have some materials on how pull a git repo to certain location via home manager?

If you want to manage dotfiles on nix but don't want to include nvimdots in /nix/store, you can probably use home.activation.
This allows you to define additional scripts to run when home-manager is started.
For example, if .config/nvim does not exist, the following settings are pulled from the git repo.

{ config
, lib
, pkgs
, ...
}:
{
  home.activation.nvimdotsActivatioinAction = lib.hm.dag.entryAfter [ "writeBoundary" ] ''
    if [ ! -d ${config.xdg.configHome}/nvim ]; then
      ${pkgs.git}/bin/git clone https://github.com/ayamir/nvimdots.git ${config.xdg.configHome}/nvim
    fi
  '';
}

[Cyberczy]

I am very interested in NixOS, but due to the lack of relevant documentation, I have yet to try it. Could you give me some advice or resources?

[misumisumi]

The following materials may be helpful.

• NixOS & Flakes Book: As far as I know, it covers the latest configuration methods for NixOS/HomeManager.
• nix.dev: How to create a package using nix
• nixos.org/learn: Official Docs
• NixOS options: Option search for NixOS.
• Home Manager Manual: home-manager docs
• nix-starter-configs: Simple and documented config templates
• Zero to Nix

[Cyberczy]

thank you!

[misumisumi]

While reviewing the source code, I realized that it could be written better.
For example, we are now installing dependencies in the user's environment, which can be replaced with the path from /nix/store.
Personally, I was very concerned about the fact that environment variables were declared using alias.
Therefore, we have issued a PR that allows you to add build-dependent paths to the home-manager side.
No more code is needed to resolve dependencies.
(The haskell part etc. are stil required )

Therefore, I would like to make further changes based on upstream trends. Is that ok?
Since the PR here only added functionality, I will open the PR again to resolve build dependencies.

[j4ger]

Hi there, I'm new to nixOS and I'm trying to get this to work with my old config. I'm using flakes and the base of nvimdots is working, but I couldn't find a way to merge my user configs, right now I've tried to put:

  xdg.configFile = {
    "nvim/lua/user".source = ./nvim/lua/user;
  };

in my home-manager config, but nix complains about Error installing file '.config/nvim/lua/user' outside $HOME, so I guess this isn't the correct way to do it.

Another issue I've found is that the generated wrapper for nvim doesn't work with fish shell, with the following error:

- (line 1): The function “nvim” calls itself immediately, which would result in an infinite loop.
function nvim  --description 'alias nvim CPATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/include CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/include/c++/v1 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib NIX_LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/pkgconfig nvim';  CPATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/include CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/include/c++/v1 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib NIX_LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/lib PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/etc/profiles/per-user/j4ger/lib/nvim-depends/pkgconfig nvim $argv

But it does work fine under bash tho.

[misumisumi]

Hi there, I'm new to nixOS and I'm trying to get this to work with my old config. I'm using flakes and the base of nvimdots is working, but I couldn't find a way to merge my user configs, right now I've tried to put:

I forgot that in nix flake, only git managed files are copied to /nix/store.
An error occurs because lua/user in this repository is not managed by git.
To resolve this, you need to fork to your own repository and add lua/user.

Another issue I've found is that the generated wrapper for nvim doesn't work with fish shell, with the following error:

Is this due to differences in the syntax of adding environment variables between bash or zsh and fish?
The current alias settings have only been confirmed to work with bash and zsh.

[misumisumi]

We will need to adjust your options a bit for both issues.
Especially for the latter, it seems necessary to write settings suitable for the shell.