Using extraSpecialArgs from flake to carry variable over to home manager, syntax error

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1

Hello, trying to clean up my config with variables and consolidating module .nix files and dotfiles. In any case… I think I’m close. Here is a tree dump, flake.nix, home.nix and error output :

tree dump… :

.
├── flake.nix
├── homeManagerModules
│   └── dotfiles
│   │   └── config
│   │       └── hypr
│   └── tmux.nix
├── hosts
│   └── tbnix
│       ├── default.nix
│       ├── hardware.nix
│       ├── home.nix
│       └── network.nix
├── nixosModules
     └── hyprland.nix

## flake.nix

...
  let

    homeManager = {
         df = ./homeManagerModules/dotfiles;
         cfg = ./homeManagerModules/dotfiles/config;
    };

    system = "x86_64-linux";

  in
...
  {
    # NixOS configuration entrypoint
    nixosConfigurations = {
      tbnix = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
        specialArgs = { 
          inherit system; inherit inputs;
        };
        modules = [
          home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager {
            home-manager.extraSpecialArgs = { inherit homeManager; };
            home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true;
            home-manager.useUserPackages = true;
            home-manager.users.fez = import ./hosts/tbnix/home.nix;
          }
          # nixos-cosmic.nixosModules.default
          ./hosts/tbnix
        ];
      };
...

# ./hosts/tbnix/home.nix
{ inputs, config, lib, pkgs, modulesPath, homeManager, ... }:

{
  imports = [
    ../common/home.nix 
  ];

  home.file = {
    ".config/hypr/common.conf" = {
      source = {homeManager.cfg}/hypr/common.conf;
    };
    ".config/hypr/keybind" = {
      source = {homeManager.cfg}/hypr/keybind;
    };
...


# ERROR

...
      error: syntax error, unexpected '}', expecting '.' or '='
       at /nix/store/5mj2gnkzi1qzdpl806rfsn7mbra8imqv-source/hosts/tbnix/home.nix:10:32:
            9|     ".config/hypr/common.conf" = {
           10|       source = {homeManager.cfg}/hypr/common.conf;
             |                                ^
           11|     };

Thank you

2

Paths support string interpolation, but you still need the $ and you need at least one leading /. See: Data Types - Nix Reference Manual

This should (hopefully) fix it, you may need to change the definition of your variable though - no idea if interpolation correctly resolves path separators in the substituted string part:

  home.file = {
    ".config/hypr/common.conf" = {
      source = ./${homeManager.cfg}/hypr/common.conf;
    };
    ".config/hypr/keybind" = {
      source = ./${homeManager.cfg}/hypr/keybind;
    };

OTOH, simple concatenation may just be better:

  home.file = {
    ".config/hypr/common.conf" = {
      source = homeManager.cfg + ./hypr/common.conf;
    };
    ".config/hypr/keybind" = {
      source = homeManager.cfg + ./hypr/keybind;
    };
2 Likes
3

Nice! yeah that seems to have fixed the home.file section. However, now the error moved to the imports section of my ./common/home.nix.

Here is the common home.nix section that has the error:

# common home.nix
{ inputs, config, lib, pkgs, modulesPath, homeManager, ... }:

{
  imports = [
    homeManager.df + ./tmux.nix
    homeManager.df + ./lf.nix
    homeManager.df + ./lsp.nix
    homeManager.df + ./zsh.nix
    homeManager.df + ./vscode.nix
  ];

...

# ERROR
       error: syntax error, unexpected '+'
       at /nix/store/594b6wcrd61jfb3p0xzq5q2vvaxlyaks-source/hosts/common/home.nix:12:20:
           11|
           12|     homeManager.df + ./tmux.nix
             |                    ^
           13|     homeManager.df + ./lf.nix

TY!

4

You need to wrap that into () So that it becomes (home manager.df + "/tmux.nix") and so on

4 Likes
5

That did it, I had some other path issues, removed periods and carried over the extraSpecialArgs to other home.nix files and nix flake check is happy. TY!

1 Like