Nix System Rebuild
SkillDev toolsActivates dotfiles on managed hosts through hey. Use when a system rebuild, activation, or rollback is explicitly requested, not after every Nix edit.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.
Then ask your AI: use the Nix System Rebuild skill
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by edmundmiller/dotfiles in .pi/skills/nix-rebuild/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
After changing any Nix-managed config in ~/.config/dotfiles, the system must be rebuilt for changes to take effect. Nix store symlinks are read-only — you cannot edit them in place.
Quick Rebuild
cd ~/.config/dotfiles
sudo darwin-rebuild switch --flake .
darwin-rebuild has a NOPASSWD sudoers rule, so this works non-interactively.
Using hey
The hey command wraps rebuilds:
hey rebuild # or: hey re
hey test # build + activate without boot entry
hey rollback # roll back to previous generation
When to Rebuild
- After editing any
.nixfile - After editing config files symlinked through home-manager (lazygit, ghostty, etc.)
- When you see "permission denied" writing to a Nix store path
Workflow
- Edit source config in
~/.config/dotfiles/ - Commit changes
- Run
sudo darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/.config/dotfiles - Verify the symlink now points to updated Nix store path
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 80
- Forks
- 6
- Last commit
- Sep 2026
Advanced
- Catalog kind
- skill
- Gateway key
nix-rebuild- Source
- github.com/edmundmiller/dotfiles