this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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Nix / NixOS

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I just want to know from you how you (or how you would) pass options to packages you develop with flakes.

I am currently writing a widget bar using Astal and then import the flake in my NixOS flake and use the package.default output in home.packages. I'd like to also style this bar according to my Stylix theme, how do you do something like this?

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[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I usually provide a NixOS/home-manager module together with my flake, that can then be imported and customized by setting the config options.

[–] mobsenpai@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

can you provide me with a simple example, and syntax. I have tried, but failed. I want that the astal config uses a custom colorscheme which i configure somehow that can be given as option when importing that flake in the main nixos system.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I'm afraid it's difficult to provide a simple example as there are a bunch of moving parts.

In essence, you create a file (e.g. module.nix) in your package repo:

self:
{
  config,
  pkgs,
  lib,
  ...
}:
let
  cfg = config.programs.my-package;
in
{
  # Here we define the options that we can tweak and configure.
  options = {
    programs.my-package = {
      # Whether to configure anything in the first place
      enable = lib.mkEnableOption "my package";
      # Which colors to use
      colors =
        let
          # This is just a function to reduce boilerplates. It generates options from the name of the color setting
          color =
            name:
            lib.mkOption {
              description = "${name} color for my-package";
              type = lib.types.str;
            };
        in
        {
          bg = color "Background";
          fg = color "Foreground";
          # other colors here too
        };
    };
    # Whether to use stylix to configure colors
    stylix.targets.my-package.enable = lib.mkEnableOption "Stylix configuration for my-package";
  };
  # Here we set up our package (if programs.my-package.enable is true)
  config = lib.mkIf cfg.enable {
    # Add our package to home.packages (you're doing this already, we're just moving it here for convenience)
    home.packages = [ self.packages.${pkgs.system}.my-package ];
    # Here is the part where we do the actual configuring. This depends on how your package reads its configuration.
    xdg.configFile."my-package/colors.toml".text = ''
      <somehow generate the config file using ${cfg.bg} and ${cfg.fg} etc
    '';
    # This is a bit recursive but should be fine. If if throws errors about infinite recursion then tell me :)
    # Here we set the default values for the colors in our configuration to whatever is provided via stylix (provided you enable the corresponding config setting)
    programs = lib.mkIf stylix.targets.my-package.enable {
      my-package.colors.bg = lib.mkDefault config.stylix.colors.base00;
      my-package.colors.fg = lib.mkDefault config.stylix.colors.base05;
      # etc
    };
  };
}

Then you make sure your program reads the colors from ~/.config/my-package/colors.toml (you can use whatever format or path you want, but adjust the module accordingly), and uses those colors

Finally, you add homeModules.default = import ./module.nix self; to your package flake, and imports = [ inputs.my-package.homeModules.default ]; programs.my-package.enable = true; stylix.targets.my-package.enable = true; to your home-manager configuration. You will need to adjust a lot of stuff depending on how exactly you want to do this but this should get you started.

All of this is a bit complicated but I think for a good reason; this setup is really quite flexible and will allow you to expand easily in the future should you continue work on the project. And if not, it gives you a chance to learn about a lot of different Nix concepts that will come in useful later :)

[–] mobsenpai@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

@balsoft Help wanted my G!, I am stuck here I created this flake for my astal widget config: https://github.com/mobsenpai/astal.git

And I have this flake for my main nixos config: https://github.com/hana.git

I can try to import it now, but perhaps it seems that there is some error here. I try building this astal config using nix build (just to try to test it) and it creates a result folder inside the astal folder, where i have its flake and configs, see the astal repo, those are the contents of the folder. But there is no check.scss file gets created in the scss/theme/ folder. I haven't yet tried to import it into my nixos system, for now, didn't get the time, but will update you on that, but I feel something if not a lot of things are not good here.

[–] mobsenpai@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Wow, my G! This is incredibly well-structured, and I really appreciate that you even included comments. It’s genuinely helpful, and I’m definitely going to give it a try.

I actually posted this while my exams are ongoing, hoping someone would respond in the meantime. For real, thank you so much. I love this community!