nixCats can't find lua files

[quarkQuark]

I ran nix flake init -t github:BirdeeHub/nixCats-nvim#kickstart-nvim in ./modules/cli/neovim and added

inputs = {
  nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

  home-manager = {
    url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
    inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  nvim-config = {
    url = "path:./modules/cli/neovim";
    inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };
};

outputs = {nixpkgs, home-manager, nvim-config, ... }:
  homeConfigurations.archlinux = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
    # ...
    modules = [
      # ...
      nvim-config.homeModules.default
      { nvim.enable = true; }
    ];
};

to ./flake.nix. This builds without any warnings, but when I run nvim it gives the following error:

I'm fairly new to nix, so I am sorry if this issue is just from me doing something wrong. I am on Arch Linux (not NixOS), in case that makes a difference. The same error occurs when I set wrapRc = false.

This seems similar to #59, but may not be the same underlying issue.

[BirdeeHub]

Edit: see the end for the most likely problem, but below is some useful info and troubleshooting info nonetheless

The error looks to me like you deleted lua/nixCatsUtils from the directory, which the init.lua is then trying to call? That directory has the lazy.nvim wrapper in it. It's an optional addition to make lazy.nvim play nice.

If you didn't delete it, you have something not pointing to the correct thing or something silly with git but what I'm not super sure yet.

It's hard to tell without more info.

It looks to be user error, but I would like to do my due diligence just in case. Which is fine don't worry about it. I'll move this to discussions later if it is just user error so others can learn from it.

wrapRc = false makes it look in ~/.config/nvim and then if you set unwrappedCfgPath you can make it look anywhere when wrapRc = false instead of there.

but this is not related to your problem. For now, leave it as wrapRc = true. This will make sure it uses the nix store path for your config provided as the luaPath variable in your template

That option is so that you can set up a version of your config that forgoes being able to be ran from anywhere via nix run in exchange for normal reload, i.e. no need to rebuild via nix if changes are to lua only if using that setting, but at the cost of nix being able to provision that directory. NixCats lets you easily have multiple configs with different settings so people usually have one with wrapRc as true for their main and one with it as false for quicker editing experience where they can just restart the editor to see changes after they do an initial build to install the plugin via nix.

---

Can you provide a bit more info for me to help troubleshoot?

What is the output of :NixCats settings after you dismiss that error? Go to the location in nixCats_config_location. If wrapRc = true it should be a store path. Does it look like you expect, with an init.lua at root level and a lua directory?

Also to narrow down some variables, try this.

cd into modules/cli/neovim and run nix build .

Then run ./result/bin/nvim

Does it throw still when you do that? What is the output from :NixCats settings when you do that?

the output of :NixCats settings should look something like this

{
  aliases = { "vim" },
  collate_grammars = true,
  configDirName = "nvim",
  disablePythonPath = true,
  disablePythonSafePath = false,
  extraName = "",
  moduleNamespace = { "nvim" },
  nixCats_config_location = "/nix/store/4747w9s93kswkwkpgfc67gnydrs69mzb-gdn4rj952ira12mxpbwwdfind49yqmq8-source",
  nixCats_packageName = "nvim",
  ["suffix-LD"] = false,
  ["suffix-path"] = false,
  viAlias = false,
  vimAlias = false,
  withNodeJs = false,
  withPerl = false,
  withPython3 = true,
  withRuby = true,
  wrapRc = true,
  <metatable> = {
    __call = <function 1>
  }
}

Copy the path from nixCats_config_location, cd there and make sure it looks as expected

The following would navigate you there from within nvim without copy pasting also

:lua vim.cmd.edit(nixCats.settings.nixCats_config_location)

Is your config submoduled in some way? Maybe that could be causing an issue? Seems unlikely though because if the ./modules/cli/neovim directory was a submodule that wasnt being fetched, you would think it wouldnt fetch any of it

also did you make sure you ran git add first before building? Nix wont be able to find unstaged files.

Regardless Id be very surprised if it was related to issue 59.

---

Edit: actually, that last thing about unstaged files sounds most likely.

Go to your config. Run git add . to make sure all files are staged in git. Then rebuild again.

[quarkQuark]

Thanks for the reply. :NixCats settings gives

I have checked that I still have both files in lua/nixCatsUtils.

[quarkQuark]

I ran nix flake update and I no longer get that error, so that's probably beginner error. But I am still not sure it's loading everything properly; apart from having access to :NixCats, it seems to be acting like unconfigured neovim. (For example, there are no line numbers even though init.lua has vim.opt.number = true).

The same thing happens with nix flake init -t github:BirdeeHub/nixCats-nvim#example (just putting vim.opt.number = true at the end of init.lua).

[BirdeeHub]

And you made sure everything is staged? As in, you made sure to run both git add . and nix flake update when you swapped to a different template?

Did you go to the store directory indicated by nixCats_config_location? Did the store version contain all the expected files?

What happens when you cd to ./modules/cli/neovim and run nix build and then run ./result/bin/nvim?

Both templates should already have line numbers (relative line numbers, specifically)

This is somewhat strange. Again, you made sure that everything was staged in git via git add before you rebuilt your system to test it?

[BirdeeHub]

alright, trying it in my own config with the subflaking like that with the kickstart config. Will see if I can reproduce.

I do mine like the nixExpressionFlakeOutputs template so that I dont have to deal with the sometimes needing nix flake update thing. I have seen people successfully do it this way though.

[BirdeeHub]

oof. Ok. So, if you subflake it in that way, its still a separate flake.

So, when you update the nvim config, you then need to git add . && nix flake lock --update-input nvim-config

You only need the git add when adding entierly new files though, as long as the file is tracked it will still reflect updates within the files.

It does work though. Im getting a configured nvim. So its definitely user error. But the above process is... somewhat error prone tbh...

[BirdeeHub]

the nixExpressionFlakeOutputs template is literally the following:

take the inputs of the flake.nix in the template. Put them in your main flake's inputs. There are only 2, nixpkgs, and nixCats.

take the function that was named outputs in the template's flake.nix, and make it the entire file.

change the name of flake.nix to default.nix

Then you can (import ./modules/cli/neovim inputs).homeModules.default

If the extra nix flake update nvim-config is too annoying, id suggest doing that.

[quarkQuark]

Running

nix flake update nvim-config
nix flake update
home-manager switch --flake .#archlinux

now gives nixCats_config_location as ~/.config/nvim rather than a path to the nix store (but still wrapRc = false), but the directory isn't created and the config isn't loaded. Everything is staged in git, and I'm not using any sort of git submodules.

Building neovim on its own gives the exact same result.

Any way I can think to access the nixExpressionFlakeOutputs home-manager module from my top-level flake (including putting the line you suggested in my modules list) gives error: cannot find flake 'flake:inputs' in the flake registries. I'm sure this is very much user error. Where are you expecting I should put this line?

I had thought that the main advantage of giving neovim its own flake was to enable it to be built / run without building the whole home-manager config. But your https://github.com/BirdeeHub/birdeeSystems/tree/main/common/birdeevim#readme seems to imply otherwise?

I have a Makefile, so I'm not worried about extra typing once I get something that works.

[BirdeeHub]

Well, if wrapRc = false then the config being at ~/.config/nvim and not being provisioned is the expected behavior.

wrapRc = false makes an impure package where you have to put the config in place in exchange for the ability to edit, restart the editor, and see the changes. You can use unwrappedCfgPath to then choose any arbitrary absolute path for it if desired. It creates a package for testing purposes.

It only copies the config directory into the store with wrapRc = true

Also nixExpressionsFlakeOutputs template is not imported via flake input, nor is it a module, it's just the outputs function of a flake in its own file. So you call that function, and then the variable holds the same thing the flake input would have. So there's some misunderstanding there, as it shouldn't be looking in your flake registries at all for that.

Wait, I just realized. The error about flake:inputs

Your main flake.nix should have { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, ... }: as the arguments to your outputs function right? Change it to this.

{ self, nixpkgs, home-manager, ... }@inputs:

Unless, did you use the actual template? My snippet was correct for the instructions I gave to convert, but not the template itself. If so, it actually takes it's argument inside a set like this

(import ./modules/cli/neovim { inherit inputs; }).homeModules.default

The reason for that being that its easier to pass extra stuff in that way if you want, but that's all for you to change to be how you want. It's literally just a function that needs to take the inputs somehow and then returns all the things the flake would have.

[quarkQuark]

Well, if wrapRc = false then the config being at ~/.config/nvim and not being provisioned is the expected behavior.

Ah... I had interpreted that precisely the wrong way round. Setting wrapRc back to true makes it work!

Thanks so much for helping me figure this out. It's a silly error on my part, but I would have taken a lot longer to figure it out on my own.

The error about flake:inputs was because I'd added inputs to the arguments for the outputs of my top-level flake (as in, outputs = { inputs, ... }: ...). It seems that was incorrect syntax; perhaps that's what self and/or @inputs are for in the second line you gave me? I didn't consider that there could be anything wrong with it, so I left it in when testing both the manual conversion and the template.

Now it's time for me to begin my proper messing around 😁.

[BirdeeHub]

self is an argument always passed to the outputs function of a flake. It contains the result of the outputs function. Yes, functional language is trippy, you can pass the result of a function call into that function call.

I was just making sure you had an inputs variable available to pass.

Glad you got it figured out! Hope things go well!