Introduction

Using Nix flakes you can create declarative and repoducible environments.

Install tools and apps via nix and store them on a repository.

Create Git Repository

First, we need to create a Git Repository.

Create a folder on ~/nix-flakes

mkdir -p ~/nix-flakes
cd nix-flakes

Then intialize a repository

touch README.md

git init
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"

Create Nix Flakes

We will need to first initialize the Flake

nix flake init
git add flake.nix flake.lock

Add the following to flake.nix

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

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

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, ... }: let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
    pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
  in {
    homeConfigurations.default = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
      inherit pkgs;
      modules = [ ./home ];
    };
  };
}

Then create a folder home/ on the Repository

mkdir -p home

And create a file home/default.nix on it with the following content (touch home/default.nix)

{ ... }:

let
  username = builtins.getEnv "USER";
in
{

  nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;

  assertions = [
    {
      assertion = username != "";
      message = "Environment varialbe USER is not set. Set USER";
    }
  ];

  home.username = username;
  home.homeDirectory = "/home/${username}";

  home.stateVersion = "25.11";

  imports = [
    ./core.nix
  ];

  programs.home-manager.enable = true;
}

And add a new file home/core.nix with these packages

{ pkgs, ... }:

{

  home.packages = [
    pkgs.btop # htop replacement
    pkgs.coreutils
    pkgs.curl
    pkgs.dust # du modern replacement (system storage tool)
    pkgs.ffmpeg
    pkgs.gnupg
    pkgs.libaio
    pkgs.libarchive
    pkgs.procs # ps replacement
    pkgs.sd # sed replacement
    pkgs.unixtools.netstat
    pkgs.wget
    pkgs.wslu
    pkgs.xdg-utils
    pkgs.xz
    pkgs.keychain
    pkgs.unzipNLS
    pkgs.zip
  ];

}

Commit the changes

git add .
git commit -m "Configure git flake"

Install Packages

In order to install the package you will need to run from the repo first (cd ~/nix-flakes)

nix run github:nix-community/home-manager#home-manager -- switch --impure --flake .#default

This will install all the packages that you have declared.

Add more Packages

If you’d like to add more packages you can create a new file (f.e. home/browsers.nix) like

{ pkgs, ... }:

{

  home.packages = [
    pkgs.firefox
    pkgs.browsh
  ];

}

And add them to imports on home/default.nix

  ...
  imports = [
    ./core.nix
    ./browsers.nix
  ];
  ...

You will need to commit the changes before applying them

git add .
git commit -m "adding browsers"

Then you can simply run

home-manager switch --impure --flake .#default