Bootstrapping stand-alone home-manager config with Flakes

Guides
1

Home-manager provides some template for using it with flakes. But there is still no bootstrap/install instructions and manual.

If you already have you config and it includes managing home-manager itself, then you probably can use something like:

nix build --no-write-lock-file home-manager
./result/bin/home-manager --flake ".#$USER" switch

(note that home-manager is in global Flakes registry)

Most likely can use home-manager/release-21.11 if needed (see choosing channel in manual).

If you are not on NixOS and manage nix via home-manager too, you probably want to remove nix installed into nix-env. Just use build instead of switch previously and separately activate it with removal:

nix shell 'nixpkgs#nix' --command sh -c 'nix-env -e nix && ./result/activate'
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2

Much more comfortable that running build followed by ./result/bin/home-manager might be the use of nix run.

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3

Complete example

The command

nix run --no-write-lock-file github:nix-community/home-manager/ -- --flake ".#$USER" switch

on a brand-new VM with

  • Nix 2.6.1

  • experimental-features = nix-command flakes added to /etc/nix/nix.conf or to ~/.config/nix/nix.conf.

  • this flake 
    ​{
  ​description = "Home Manager configurations";
​
  ​inputs = {
    ​nixpkgs .url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-21.11";
    ​home-manager = {
      ​url = "github:nix-community/home-manager/release-21.11";
      ​inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    ​};
  ​};
​
  ​outputs = {self, nixpkgs, home-manager}: {
    ​homeConfigurations  = {
      ​"vagrant" = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
        ​configuration = {pkgs, ...}: {
          ​programs.home-manager.enable = true;
          ​home.packages = [
            ​pkgs.cowsay
          ​];
        ​};
        ​system = "x86_64-linux";
        ​homeDirectory = "/home/vagrant";
        ​username = "vagrant";
        ​stateVersion = "21.11";
      ​};
    ​};
  ​};
​}

installs a home-manager that can subsequently be used with the command

home-manager --flake ".#$USER" switch
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