A dotfile backup method ($out path help needed!)

ryuji-terix · May 25, 2024, 4:13pm

I’ve been thinkering with the idea of a way to copy my dotfiles folder and stash it away in some god forsaken folder for each system rebuild so that, in case of a git catastrophy (that happened because I am a dummy) I can rollback my system and then dig out this folder and be certain that I have the configuration that nixos used to build this “rolled back version”

The current “version” is a simple derivation that (given my dotfiles path) copies everything in /run/current-dotfiles, the only problem is that it doesn’t, it builds the derivation and I even found it in the store (with all the right files stored) but it doesn’t systemlinkit to /run/current-dotfiles

Is it a reserved path of some sort or am I missing something?

Here’s the full derivation:

{ stdenv, settings }:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
	name = "dotfiles-backup";

	version = "1.0";
	src = settings.dotfiles_path;

	installPhase = ''
		mkdir -p $out/run/current-dotfiles
		cp -r . $out/run/current-dotfiles
	'';
}

And if it can help, how I call the derivation

environment.systemPackages = let
	dotfiles-backup =
		(pkgs.callPackage ../../unofficial/dotfiles-backup.nix { inherit settings; });
in [ dotfiles-backup ];

edit:
here’s the result
Nix Store

/run