Configuration Options Reference

This document explains all the configuration options available in your Nix-Darwin setup.

Modern Tool Replacements

Location: modules/home/default.nix

# Enable to replace traditional commands with modern alternatives
programs.modernTools.enable = true;  # Default: false

What changes when enabled:

Traditional	Modern Replacement	Features Added
`ls`	`eza --icons`	Icons, colors, git status
`cat`	`bat`	Syntax highlighting, line numbers
`grep`	`rg` (ripgrep)	5-10x faster, respects .gitignore
`find`	`fd`	Faster, intuitive syntax
`tree`	`erd`	Modern tree with better defaults
`top`	`btop`	Beautiful TUI, mouse support
`df`	`duf`	Better formatting, colors
`du`	`dust`	Visual tree of disk usage
`ps`	`procs`	Better formatting, tree view
`dig`	`dog`	Colorful, cleaner output
`ping`	`gping`	Graph visualization
`diff`	`delta`	Side-by-side, syntax highlighting

Always available shortcuts (regardless of setting):

e → eza
b → bat
rg → ripgrep
f → fd
ls2 → lsd (alternative to eza)
tree2 → broot (interactive tree)
fzf2 → sk (skim)
tmux2 → zellij
vim2 → helix

ML/Data Science Stack

Location: flake.nix

modules = [
  ./modules/system/core.nix
  ./modules/system/cli-utils.nix
  ./modules/system/ml-stack.nix  # Uncomment to enable
  ./modules/homebrew/apps.nix
  # ...
];

Adds PyTorch, TensorFlow, Jupyter, pandas, and more.

Shell History

Two options available (both installed):

Atuin (default)

Neural network-based history search
Syncs across machines (optional)
Stats and insights

McFly (alternative)

# To switch to McFly, edit modules/home/default.nix
# Comment out the Atuin line and uncomment:
# eval "$(${pkgs.mcfly}/bin/mcfly init zsh)"

Git Configuration

Location: modules/home/default.nix

programs.git = {
  userName = "Your Name";        # TODO: Update
  userEmail = "your@email.com";  # TODO: Update
  
  # Optional: Enable commit signing
  extraConfig = {
    commit.gpgsign = true;
    user.signingkey = "YOUR_GPG_KEY";
  };
};

Terminal Emulator

Multiple options installed:

Kitty - GPU accelerated, fast
WezTerm - Highly configurable
iTerm2 - Classic Mac terminal

Set your default in System Preferences → Desktop & Dock → Default web browser → Terminal.

Container Runtime

OrbStack installed by default. To use Podman instead:

# In modules/homebrew/apps.nix, replace:
"orbstack"
# With:
"podman-desktop"

Then run:

podman machine init
podman machine start

Useful Toggles

Nix Store Optimization

Already enabled in modules/system/core.nix:

nix.settings = {
  auto-optimise-store = true;  # Deduplicates files
  fsync-metadata = true;       # Safer writes
};

Touch ID for sudo

Already enabled - no configuration needed.

Directory-specific environments

Already configured with direnv. Create .envrc files in projects:

# Example .envrc
export NODE_ENV=development
export DATABASE_URL=postgresql://localhost/myapp