bug: flakes initialization doc instructions do not work

[nathan-at-least]

Are you following the right branch?

• [X] My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

Problem

Following the docs to install home-manager on nixos stable as a stand-alone flake doesn't work.

Background

I'm fairly new to nixos having used nix atop debian a bit.

I've not used home-manager before.

I've just installed nixos, and the first thing I want to do with a new user account is convert it to a standalone setup home manager using flakes. I am not too familiar or experienced with flakes, but they seem like the new/better way to do things, and the advantages make sense to me.

README.md

First, I read over the README.md and it says:

Home Manager provides both the channel-based setup and the flake-based one. See Nix Flakes for a description of the flake-based setup.

Tangent: That link goes to the table of contents for the manual (not a flakes specific chapter), so it may be broken: . However, when I click the chapter 3 in the table of contents, it scrolls to the correct location with the same URL. Not sure why this happens (on Chrome). Also, I noticed whenever I open those navigation urls in a new window, or follow a link from an external site, they do not scroll to the appropriate location, but after the page renders, then the table-of-content works.

Anyway, there's a chapter called 3. Nix Flakes, so I browse there.

3.1 Prerequisites

I followed 3.1 Prerequisites:

• My nix version is 2.13.6 which seems greater than 2.4.
• I enable experimental features in nixos by adding the nix = { … } snippet to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix and running nixos-rebuild --switch as root.
• Prepared my ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix as follows:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  home.stateVersion = "23.05";
  programs.home-manager.enable = true;
}

3.2 Stand-alone Setup

Next I followed 3.2 Stand-alone Setup:

$ nix run home-manager/release-23.05 -- init --switch
The file /home/<my user>/.config/home-manager/home.nix already exists, leaving it unchanged...
Creating /home/<my user>/.config/home-manager/flake.nix...

Creating initial Home Manager generation...

warning: Git tree `/home/<my user>/.config/home-manager` is dirty
error: getting status of '/nix/store/6l7jwnx9gq0djk22pjr9b12qv0jqm5ad-source/flake.nix`: No such file or directory
warning: Git tree `/home/<my user>/.config/home-manager` is dirty
error: getting status of '/nix/store/6l7jwnx9gq0djk22pjr9b12qv0jqm5ad-source/flake.nix`: No such file or directory
warning: Git tree `/home/<my user>/.config/home-manager` is dirty
error: getting status of '/nix/store/6l7jwnx9gq0djk22pjr9b12qv0jqm5ad-source/flake.nix`: No such file or directory
Uh oh, the installation failed! Please create an issue at

    https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/issues

if the error seems to be the fault of Home Manager.

Unsure How To Proceed

The init --switch command fails, so I don't know how to proceed.

To recap my approach:

• Fresh new nixos stable 23.05 installation.
• Installing home manager via a flake as a stand-alone installation.

It seems like this would be a common path, so if I missed something in the docs, let me know. (In that case, I might submit doc improvements.) Otherwise, if it's a bug, that would be good to sort out also.

Maintainer CC

No response

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
- host os: `Linux 6.1.61, NixOS, 23.05 (Stoat), 23.05.4738.41de143fda10
- multi-user?: `yes`
- sandbox: `yes`
- version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.13.6`
- nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

[berbiche]

Hi Nathan,

Thanks for the thorough bug report.

To resolve your issue, you will need to run git add to track all the required files in your flake repository (/home/<your user>/.config/home-manager/).

As far as I know, Flakes only work with git repositories, so you must track all files that your flake.nix (and its evaluation) will require.

Additional information about their usage is documented here:

• https://zero-to-nix.com/concepts/flakes
• https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes

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