Flake-like non-flake home-manager

1

I think I am doing something crazy.

Screenshot from 2025-12-04 16-48-38
Screenshot from 2025-12-04 16-48-381277×1532 311 KB

I used nh home switch -f ./home-entry to activate my home-manager configuration (./home.nix), while using ./flake-compat.nix to get inputs from ./flake-compat.nix/flake.nix. NH seems to use the inputs from the flake.nix.

home-entry.nix is ​​modified from the nix function <home-manager/home-manger/home-manager.nix>. In simple terms, when not using flake, home-manger switch simply uses nix-build to build the activationPackage property returned by the nix function. This nix function accepts home.nix (usually) as an argument. This nix function is a wrapper of <home-manager/modules>.

When flake is enabled, I noticed that homeManagerConfiguration is also a wrapper for <home-manager/modules>, but compared to the former, it passes the extraSpecialArgs to <home-manager/modules>, which can set additional arguments for home modules.

Unfortunately, it seems I have to use nh because it goes deeper into the underlying layer and requires you to manually pass the file (<home-manager/home-manager/home-manager.nix>).

2

The problem is, how can I deploy it as simple as possible if I move to a new OS.

3

I’m not calling this “good” but this is kind of what you want? nh home switch -f path/to/repo lamorna.home switches to the configuration.

edit: you can ignore any of the gubbins, the only important thing is that nh wants you apply your configuration to the modules exposed in home-manager just the same way it does for nixos.

edit2: sorry, I missed your comment about needing nh. I nix-shell -p nh --run $thing to bootstrap.