CaelestiaDots on NixOS

[MorrkoB]

Hi, how to install caelestia-dots on NixOS, I tried to do it myself but it didn't work

[soramanew]

The entirety of the dots does not have a flake currently, however the shell and cli both have flakes that you can install. I recommend simply installing the cli with the withShell override.

For the rest of the configs, I recommend using something like hjem to symlink them into place

[MorrkoB]

I used to use your config on Arch and I really liked it, but now I've just switched to NixOS and don't know much about it

[yippii]

The entirety of the dots does not have a flake currently, however the shell and cli both have flakes that you can install. I recommend simply installing the cli with the withShell override.

For the rest of the configs, I recommend using something like hjem to symlink them into place

How would one do the withShell override? and if I want to use the flakes with just configuration.nix how can I import them with builtin.getFlakes? (I don't need flake locks and everything related to flakes so I decided to just stick with configuration.nix format)? Actual huge thanks!

[yippii]

Alright I found the way:

so basically one need to use builtin.getFlakes ( "github:caelestia-dots/shell" ) and then import it as a package, and now when I did this for both caelestia-shell and caelestia-cli it worked as a charm, but now the icons is a problem... ima create another discussion for that tho

thank you!

[yippii]

Great news, I tested on multiple architectures and multiple distributions, and the shell and cli worked on all of them. Here's the list of them I tested for now:

Arch Linux (x64) - Got all packages via caelestia-meta, caelestia-cli-git, and caelestia-shell-git
NixOS (x64) - Got all packages via nixpkgs, builtins.getFlake ( "github:caelestia-dots/cli" ), and builtins.getFlake ( "github:caelestia-dots/shell" )
Fedora 34 (arm64) - Worked but need to manually fetch some "packages", such as the material symbols fonts from https://github.com/google/material-design-icons, cargo wl-screenrec along with its dependencies like RPMFusion and complete set of nonfree FFmpeg codecs, python3 -m pip install installer build hatch hatch-vcs, and some packages would require the -devel package to be also installed to successfully compile the cli and shell

[Markus328]

I've never used Builtins.getFlake but I think is basically the same. You need to override the package and pass an attrs {withShell=true}

This should be like builtins.getFlake(..).packages.${pkgs.system}.caelestia-cli.override {withShell=true}

[h0useofdupree]

There is almost an unlimited amount of ways you can achieve this, but it depends on if you really want all the dots' config on your NixOS setup (which I would really not recommend IMHO) or just the shell setup.

As @soramanew mentioned, you can use the withShell override or use seperate flake inputs for the modules you need. I would recommend setting up hyprland for NixOS yourself though.

HMU if you need any help at all.

[Markus328]

I personally use caelestia-shell and override witCli = true because I can get the latest changes in this repo

[Markus328]

And I also make a overlay for both cli and shell

[ThisManQ]

can someone share their flake so i can see exaclty how this is achieved?

[Markus328]

This is how I add caelestia-shell to my nixpkgs, using an overlay:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";
    home-manager = {
      url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
   

    caelestia-shell = {
      url = "github:caelestia-dots/shell";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = inputs: let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
    pkgs = import inputs.nixpkgs {
      inherit system;
      overlays = [
        (final: prev: {
          caelestia-shell = inputs.caelestia-shell.packages.${system}.caelestia-shell;
          caelestia-cli = inputs.caelestia-shell.inputs.caelestia-cli.packages.${system}.caelestia-cli;
        })
      ];
    };
  in rec {
    ...
  };
  }

This uses the caelestia-cli from caelestia-shell dependency, instead of doing the withShell approach in caelestia-cli where the shell can be outdated because the inputs in the caelestia-cli were not updated.

in Home Manager, I use my own home manager module, which I pretend to share when its done, but I add caelestia-shell and caelestia-cli to home.packages and create a systemd user service

[ThisManQ]

Awesome!! Can you share your home-manager module as well. Is it something like this: { config, pkgs, ... }:{ home.username = "yourusername"; home.homeDirectory = "/home/yourusername"; home.stateVersion = "24.05"; # Adjust to match your NixOS version # Add caelestia-shell and caelestia-cli to user packages home.packages = with pkgs; [ caelestia-shell caelestia-cli ]; # Define a systemd user service for caelestia-shell systemd.user.services.caelestia-shell = { description = "Caelestia Shell Service"; wantedBy = [ "default.target" ]; serviceConfig = { ExecStart = "${pkgs.caelestia-shell}/bin/caelestia-shell"; # Adjust the binary name if different Restart = "always"; }; };}

…

On Sun, Aug 10, 2025 at 8:38 PM Davi Ribeiro ***@***.***> wrote: This is how I add caelestia-shell to my nixpkgs, using an overlay: { inputs = { nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable"; home-manager = { url = "github:nix-community/home-manager"; inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; }; caelestia-shell = { url = "github:caelestia-dots/shell"; inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; }; }; outputs = inputs: let system = "x86_64-linux"; pkgs = import inputs.nixpkgs { inherit system; overlays = [ (final: prev: { caelestia-shell = inputs.caelestia-shell.packages.${system}.caelestia-shell; caelestia-cli = inputs.caelestia-shell.inputs.caelestia-cli.packages.${system}.caelestia-cli; }) ]; }; in rec { ... }; } This uses the caelestia-cli from caelestia-shell dependency, instead of doing the withShell approach in caelestia-cli where the shell can be outdated because the inputs in the caelestia-cli were not updated. in Home Manager, I use my own home manager module, which I pretend to share when its done, but I add caelestia-shell and caelestia-cli to home.packages and create a systemd user service — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#278 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BKHL3EKICV4U4PHFXZ6EJJD3M7QWZAVCNFSM6AAAAACCOTFJHKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTIMBWGY4TMOI> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Markus328]

It's similar. See #402