Nix Status

Nix Status is a Noctalia plugin that monitors the active NixOS generation, compares system closures, reports when a configured system differs from the active system, and updates configured flake inputs.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	mindnbytes/nix-status
Entries	Bar widget: status; panel: details; service: service

Requirements

Nix Status is intended for NixOS and requires nix and readlink on PATH. Configured-system checks and input updates also require a Nix flake.

Usage

1. Enable Nix Status in Noctalia and add the status widget to a bar.
2. Open the details panel by clicking the widget.
3. Open the plugin settings from the panel and set Flake directory to the directory containing your flake.nix.
4. To monitor whether switching would activate a different system, set NixOS configuration to the matching nixosConfigurations name from that flake, such as vm.

An empty Flake directory disables input updates and configured-system checks. Generation checks and closure comparisons continue to work. An empty NixOS configuration disables only the configured-system check.

Open the panel directly with:

noctalia msg panel-toggle mindnbytes/nix-status:details

The widget displays:

• ↻ when /run/booted-system differs from /run/current-system, indicating that a reboot would activate the current generation.
• ⇧ when the evaluated configured system differs from /run/current-system, indicating that a different system could be built and switched to.
• Both markers when both conditions apply.

The logo separately reflects the most recent flake-input update status. The widget uses Noctalia's built-in snowflake glyph by default, so no logo files or template configuration are required.

The panel provides controls to:

• Refresh the generation status.
• Compare the booted and current system closures on demand.
• Refresh the configured-system comparison.
• Update the configured flake's inputs.
• Open the plugin settings.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
flake_dir	folder	Empty	Directory containing flake.nix. Required for input updates and configured-system checks.
nixos_configuration	string	Empty	Attribute name under nixosConfigurations to evaluate, such as vm. An empty value disables configured-system checks.
use_themed_logos	bool	false	Uses optional cache-rendered NixOS logo templates instead of the built-in snowflake glyph.

After upgrading from a manifest version without these settings, disable and re-enable the plugin if they do not appear.

Optional themed NixOS logos

The bundled templates preserve Noctalia palette colors: on_surface for normal status, primary for updated inputs, and error for failed updates.

1. Copy assets/nix-logo.toml into the root of your Noctalia configuration directory, normally ~/.config/noctalia/.

2. Copy the three SVG files from assets/templates/ into $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/noctalia/templates/, normally ~/.config/noctalia/templates/. Preserve existing customized files rather than overwriting them blindly.

3. Apply the registered templates:

   noctalia msg templates-apply
   

4. Enable Use themed NixOS logos in the plugin settings.

Noctalia normally loads all root-level *.toml configuration files automatically. If you use [include] with autoload = false, explicitly include nix-logo.toml in your existing configuration. If Noctalia's configuration directory is outside XDG_CONFIG_HOME, adjust the TOML input paths accordingly.

The registration file renders logos under $XDG_CACHE_HOME/noctalia/, falling back to ~/.cache/noctalia/. The widget watches the selected SVG for changes, so applying templates refreshes its colors. If a selected logo is missing, empty, or a directory, the widget falls back to the state-colored snowflake glyph and checks again during subsequent updates. A nonempty malformed SVG cannot be detected by this fallback; regenerate it or disable themed logos.

The plugin never installs template files or runs templates-apply automatically. Disabling Use themed NixOS logos returns to the built-in glyph on the next widget update without removing the user's template setup.

Notes

Processes, network access, and filesystem behavior

The service runs the following commands:

• readlink -f /run/booted-system /run/current-system to compare the booted and current generations.
• nix store diff-closures to compare their closures.
• readlink -f /run/current-system followed by nix eval --raw --no-update-lock-file to compare the active system with the configured flake output.
• nix flake update --flake FLAKE_DIR when the user explicitly requests an input update.

Generation and configured-system checks read /run/booted-system, /run/current-system, and the configured flake. Automatic evaluation uses --no-update-lock-file and does not intentionally modify flake.lock. Nix evaluation may still access substituters or flake sources according to the user's Nix configuration.

An explicit input update may access the network and modifies the configured flake's flake.lock; it therefore requires write access to the flake directory. The plugin parses the command output to report changed inputs. Running it again with no newer inputs reports that all inputs are up to date.

The optional logo integration reads SVGs rendered into Noctalia's cache. The plugin itself does not write those files or modify Noctalia's configuration.

Refresh behavior

After the initial generation check succeeds, the plugin automatically compares the booted and current system closures so retained output cannot describe paths from before a service reload, switch, or reboot. Closure comparisons can also be requested manually.

The configured-system check runs at startup, every 15 minutes, when its configuration changes, on manual refresh, and after a successful flake input update. “Switch available” means the evaluated and active store paths differ; it does not claim that the target has been built or that switching will succeed.

Duplicate requests for a workflow that is already running are discarded rather than queued.

Known limitations

NixOS configuration names are currently limited to unquoted identifier-style attributes containing letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens. Quoted names such as host.example.com are not yet supported.

Tests

Run the configuration, icon, parser, and service workflow tests with the standalone Luau interpreter:

nix shell nixpkgs#luau -c ./scripts/test

If luau is already available, run ./scripts/test directly.

License

The plugin source code is available under the MIT License.

The optional NixOS logo templates are licensed separately under CC BY 4.0. See the asset attribution and bundled artwork license. The plugin is not an official NixOS product. Follow the official NixOS branding guidance when reusing the artwork.