Refactor: Structured Configuration Support for Home Manager Module

[ananyatimalsina]

Summary

This PR refactors the home-manager module to use structured Nix attribute sets instead of raw text configuration, following the architectural pattern from Hyprland's NixOS module.

All credit for this design goes to the Hyprland project. This is a 1:1 adaptation of their implementation, modified for mangowc's specific syntax requirements.

Motivation

The previous implementation required users to write raw config strings:

settings = ''
  blur=1
  border_radius=6
  bind=SUPER,Q,spawn,wezterm
'';

This approach had several limitations:

• No type checking or validation at build time
• Poor editor support (no completion or syntax highlighting)
• String escaping issues
• Difficult to compose or merge configurations
• Error-prone for complex configs

New Configuration Format

settings = {
  # Simple key-value pairs
  blur = 1;
  border_radius = 6;
  
  # Nested attributes (flattened with underscores)
  blur_params = {
    radius = 5;
    num_passes = 2;
  };
  # Becomes: blur_params_radius=5, blur_params_num_passes=2
  
  # Lists for duplicate keys
  bind = [
    "SUPER,r,reload_config"
     "Alt,space,spawn,rofi -show drun"
     "Alt,Return,spawn,foot"
  ];
  tagrule = [
     "id:1,layout_name:tile"
     "id:2,layout_name:scroller"
  ];
};

Backward Compatibility

⚠️ Breaking Change: This changes the settings option from raw text to structured attributes.

Migration path: Users need to convert their configs from:

settings = ''
  blur=1
  bind=SUPER,Q,spawn,wezterm
'';

To:

settings = {
  blur = 1;
  bind = [ "SUPER,Q,spawn,wezterm" ];
};

For users who need raw text during migration, the new extraConfig option is available:

extraConfig = ''
  # Raw config lines
  special_option = 1
'';

Testing

• Syntax validated with nix-instantiate --parse
• Verified toMango function generates correct output format
• Tested list expansion for duplicate keys
• Tested nested attribute flattening with underscores
• Confirmed automatic exec-once for autostart.sh
• Tested for my own personal config and system

Credits

This implementation is based entirely on Hyprland's NixOS module architecture:

• Original implementation: https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/blob/main/nix/hm-module.nix
• Hyprland lib helpers: https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/blob/main/nix/lib.nix

All architectural credit goes to the Hyprland development team. This PR simply adapts their excellent design to mangowc's specific syntax and requirements.

Related

• Preserves the existing autostart_sh option with enhanced automatic handling: nix home manager modules options are unintuitive #657

[Tomate0613]

How does this work for keymodes?

[ananyatimalsina]

Oversight on my part, thanks for pointing that out! It should work now with the new keymode syntax being:

settings = {
  bind = [
    "ALT,R,setkeymode,resize"  # Enter resize mode
  ];
  
  # Keymodes (submaps) for modal keybindings
  keymode = {
    resize = {
      bind = [
        "NONE,Left,resizewin,-10,0"
        "NONE,Escape,setkeymode,default"
      ];
    };
  };
};

[invra]

Could we possibly implement a check for the old config and show an evaluation warning, so there can possibly be a buffering period? Some people might just want to update mango, but refactor their expression at a later date. I think builtins.isString can be all that's really needed.

[ananyatimalsina]

Done

[invra]

Alright, cool!

[Yappaholic]

Looks good to me, but

1. I think it needs more testing before going upstream and
2. PR commits can be squashed into one commit for clarity

[Tomate0613]

I think its also worth validating the config, like I do in #655

[invra]

I think its also worth validating the config

I think that would be not easy to maintain, because of the config specs do change a bit, whilst mkOption will be the way, we need a spec with a script which generates the nix, using said spec, which wont work nicely, unless we also refactor parts of the config system on mango which make it work together, but that's a burden.

[Tomate0613]

I don't quite understand what you mean by that?
I think just validating the output using mango -c is good enough

[invra]

nevemind then, i wasnt aware -c existed, nor could do that

[ananyatimalsina]

I think its also worth validating the config, like I do in #655

Done, pretty much a copy paste of your approach thx a lot

[SamuelHDieterich]

Sorry if this is just considered noise for the PR, but thanks, @ananyatimalsina, for putting this together!

I've been looking to migrate from Hyprland to MangoWC and I had some mixed feelings when most of the configs were similar, but the home-manager settings was expecting a raw string. I just pulled your flake, and it is working as I would've expected.

Just giving my thumbs up that this is great deal for someone like me that was expecting a more nix-friendly home-manager configuration.

[Yappaholic]

Sorry if this is just considered noise for the PR, but thanks, @ananyatimalsina, for putting this together!

I've been looking to migrate from Hyprland to MangoWC and I had some mixed feelings when most of the configs were similar, but the home-manager settings was expecting a raw string. I just pulled your flake, and it is working as I would've expected.

Just giving my thumbs up that this is great deal for someone like me that was expecting a more nix-friendly home-manager configuration.

Definitely not a noise, user testing is appreciated

[SamuelHDieterich]

Although the restructure settings has been working great, my systemd services were not been correctly initialized. After digging a bit, I found that if I manually added the dbus command to the autostart_sh config, things would work as expected.

wayland.windowManager.mango = {
  enable = true;
  systemd = {
    enable = true;
    variables = [ "--all" ];
  };
  autostart_sh = "dbus-update-activation-environment --systemd --all"; # Extra line
};

I think the problem is easy to solve. You have prepended this command to the autostart_sh variable defined in the let in block, but still using the value from cfg.autostart_sh to create the file and add the exec-once command to mango.conf.

Can you review if these changes make sense?

[SamuelHDieterich]

I've been using this fork for weeks now, I don't see a reason to not move this upstream.

After this is merged, I can check if I will still have that problem with dbus or not. If so, I can raise an issue.

Good job, @ananyatimalsina! 🚀