Installation

This guide walks you through setting up decknix on a fresh or existing macOS system.

Prerequisites

  • macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel)
  • Administrator access (for initial Nix installation)
  • ~10GB disk space for the Nix store

Run the bootstrap script to install everything from scratch:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ldeck/decknix/main/bin/bootstrap)"

This will:

  1. Install Nix with flakes enabled
  2. Install nix-darwin
  3. Create your local config directory at ~/.config/decknix/
  4. Initialize a flake in ~/.config/decknix/
  5. Prompt you for username and hostname

Option 2: Existing Nix Installation

If you already have Nix with flakes enabled:

# Create and enter your config directory
mkdir -p ~/.config/decknix && cd ~/.config/decknix

# Initialize from template
nix flake init -t github:ldeck/decknix

# Edit your settings
$EDITOR settings.nix

Edit settings.nix with your machine details:

{
  username = "your-username";     # macOS username
  hostname = "your-hostname";     # Machine name
  system   = "aarch64-darwin";    # or "x86_64-darwin" for Intel
  role     = "developer";         # "developer", "designer", or "minimal"
}

Then build and switch:

decknix switch
# Or if decknix CLI isn't installed yet:
sudo darwin-rebuild switch --flake .#default --impure

For Organisation Members

If your team maintains an org config repo, check their README for a dedicated bootstrap script that sets up both decknix and the team configuration in one step.

See Organisation Configs for how org configs work.

Next Steps