32 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
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---
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date: 2025-07-17
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title: Nix and the Dendritic pattern
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permalink: /daily/2025/07/17/nix-and-dendritic-pattern
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---
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As I wrote yesterday, [no two Nix configurations are the same][0].
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As well as having different packages and configuration options, Nix configurations can all be structured differently - similar to Drupal websites.
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Some are simple and others are very complex and manage many systems.
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A lot of people will publish their dotfiles/Nix/NixOS configurations online for others to read and take inspiration from.
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I was reading someone's code yesterday and found a pattern they wrote about called [the Dendritic pattern][2].
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Using the flake-parts module system, every file when using this pattern is a flake-parts module.
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This is different to most configurations, where only some files are modules and others are imported as needed within other files.
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From another perspective, [having consistency][1] and following a strict convention makes things like auto-importing modules possible.
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I like it solves a problem, making configurations easier to maintain as each file is responsible for adding one feature and are self-contained so things can easily be re-organised.
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If I was writing my configuration from scratch, this is the approach I'd take.
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Or, I may start looking to refactor my current configuration soon to be based on this pattern.
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[0]: /daily/2025/07/16/drupal-and-nix-similarities
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[1]: /daily/2023/04/18/consistency-is-key
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[2]: https://github.com/mightyiam/dendritic
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