Nix Starter Pack

This repo is a starter pack for folks interested in using Nix for,

• package management
• tool management
• configuration management

etc.

The default flake.nix can be used as is if you just want the bare minimum. It's pre-configured with some useful tools that can help with day to day work.

NOTE

This guide is meant for macOS users considering we default to macOS laptops. Linux users should reference the NixOS guides.

Pre-requisites

You'll need to have Nix installed.

curl -fsSL https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install --determinate

If you're curious what this is, here's the repo and you can look through the details.

It's essentially just an installer for Nix itself.

Setup the configuration

Clone this repo.

git clone https://github.com/inngest/nix-starter-pack ~/nix-darwin
cd ~/nix-darwin

Run the following to make sure configuration is on that expected path for Nix to read.

sudo ln -s $(pwd) /etc/nix-darwin

The make sure to run this command to update the hostname and username reference.

sed -i '' "s/workstation-name/$(scutil --get LocalHostName)/" flake.nix
sed -i '' "s/workstation-username/$(whoami)/" flake.nix

Build

Run the following to start the build, which should setup the Nix system for your laptop.

sudo nix run nix-darwin/nix-darwin-25.05#darwin-rebuild -- switch

Then add the following to your ~/.zshrc.

. /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh

direnvPath=$(which direnv)
eval "$(${direnvPath} hook zsh)"

And then open a new terminal session to load the config.

NOTE: Nix home-manager also have the capability to control .zshrc settings as well, so you are able to skip the step above if you use that instead.

You should now have a functioning Nix system working.

Going forward, you can just use the following command for rebuilds.

sudo darwin-rebuild switch

Whenever you made a change to flake.nix, make sure to run the command above to rebuild the system.

Documentation

You can either run darwin-help to see the docs in terminal or check it online here.

NOTE

If you like this and want to expand on customizing your configuration, make sure to remove this repo from your origin.

git remote remove origin

And then create a configuration repo of your own. This is meant to be a starter pack so there should'nt be any personalized configuration in it.