Foundry

Foundry

My public infrastructure monorepo: the NixOS/home-manager configuration that runs all my machines, plus the source of the personal projects it deploys. Requires Nix flakes.

Looking for something simpler to start out with flakes? Try my starter config repo.

Repository layout

hosts/nixos/    per-machine NixOS configurations (atlas, alcyone, ...)
hosts/ubuntu/   system-manager configurations for Ubuntu machines
hosts/common/   configuration shared between both
home/           home-manager configuration (feature-flagged)
modules/        reusable nixos/ and home-manager/ modules
overlays/, pkgs/ package overlays and custom packages (including wallpapers)
lib/            pure-Nix Material You color engine
projects/       my public projects deployed from here (e.g. the m7.rs website)

Highlights:

• NixOS configurations: desktop, laptop, servers
• Opt-in persistence through impermanence + blank snapshotting
• Encrypted single BTRFS partition (with disko for declarative partitioning)
• Secure Boot via lanzaboote
• Fully declarative self-hosted stuff
• Deployment secrets using sops-nix
• Mesh networked hosts with tailscale and headscale
• Flexible Home Manager configs through feature flags
• Extensively configured hyprland environment
• Declarative theming: wallpapers and a pure-Nix Material You color engine
• Nixbot CI/CD polls my self-hosted Git, builds every host, and drives pull deployment through an independent binary cache

About the installation

My NixOS machines use a single btrfs (encrypted on all except headless systems) partition, with subvolumes for /nix, a /persist directory (which I opt in using impermanence), swap file, and a root subvolume (cleared on every boot).

On NixOS, Home Manager is integrated via home-manager.users. My Ubuntu work laptop uses system-manager and standalone Home Manager instead.

Secrets

For deployment secrets (such as user passwords and server service secrets), I'm using the awesome sops-nix. All secrets are encrypted with my personal PGP key (stored on a YubiKey), as well as the relevant systems' SSH host keys.

On my desktop and laptop, I use pass for managing passwords, which are encrypted using (you bet) my PGP key. This same key is also used for mail signing, as well as for SSH'ing around.

Tooling and applications I use

Most relevant user apps daily drivers:

• hyprland + hypridle + hyprlock
• waybar
• helix
• fish
• alacritty
• qutebrowser
• aerc + mbsync
• khal + khard + vdirsyncer
• todomd
• gpg + pass
• tailscale
• podman
• zathura
• wofi
• bat + fd + rg
• kdeconnect

Some of the services I host:

• nixbot
• jellyfin
• *arrs (including torrent and usenet)
• prometheus
• websites (such as https://m7.rs)
• minecraft
• headscale

Nixy stuff:

• sops-nix
• impermanence
• disko
• lanzaboote
• home-manager
• and NixOS and nix itself, of course :)

Let me know if you have any questions about them :)

Unixpornish stuff

AI usage note

Since June 2026, I've been trying out LLM assistance in my workflows. So far it feels pretty good; brainstorming helps me a lot with decision paralysis. I'm trying to keep my use bounded and disclosed. I think it's a useful tool, but it should be adopted with care.

I will write a decent blog post about my opinions on AI at some point. The gist is:

• These things are useful for bounded tasks with good docs and reviews, but suck at owning architecture or accountability
• There's no going back now that open-weight models run on consumer hardware, we can't uninvent them
• Boycotting AI does not help by itself; non-use is not a political strategy
• We need clear LLM policy on projects rather than trying (and failing) to forbid it
• Disclosure is very important, and trying to pass LLM output off as human-written is disrespectful
• LLMs should never have been built by scraping and exploiting our art and work
• If copyright doesn't protect our creations, it shouldn't protect their models; support open-weight models and distillation as harm reduction
• We need regulation, decentralization, and redistribution of the value LLMs generate
• Machines can't be horny, thus can't create art; LLMs are for utility, not art or craft. Pay an artist instead

Some bibliography I'd recommend:

• Alice's "AI Sucks. Hating it is not enough." (please read it, it's an amazing piece)
• Drew's "The cults of TDD and GenAI" (I don't really agree with the non-use perspective, but otherwise I think it's solid)
• Armin's "Communities of Not" and "The Center Has a Bias" (I'm not a centrist politically, though)