Is there a smart way to modularize inputs per aspect?

[baltimore-balls]

I've made a janky hack but it doesn't feel right. The idea is defining custom provided flakeModules that can be included for aspects, which'll influence the global flake-file.inputs for write-flake. The problem is when using a den config across hosts, I don't want every host to download all the flake-file.inputs despite only needing a handful.. that's not very modular.

[vic]

Hey @baltimore-balls, that is a nice idea, I've also been thinking about it, but have not wrote anything for it.

How are you doing this ? I'd like to see some code you have.

[baltimore-balls]

My code is more of an ugly hack than a solution, which is why I was asking. I could try playing around with the idea more but its already been such a time sink. Thank you for the reply!

[madeupandprobablydoesnotexist]

would love to see this!

[vic]

would love to see this!

+1 @baltimore-balls please share any hack you have even if ugly (or not working), anything that can give us insight or ideas on how to implement this would be awesome.

[baltimore-balls]

I took advantage of being able to define the inputs as options in one module, then accessed under config for declaring flake-file inputs in another, giving an appearance of being "modular", though didn't actually solve the problem, as I couldn't figure out how to gather enough context to determine which aspect would be used. I'm still quite new to Nix and have much to learn.

[vic]

btw, here's how I was thinking about it:

flake-file.inputs options are project level, so if we'd like to have something like "only give me the inputs needed if I want my-laptop.nixos", we would likely need a custom class inputs, so we can do

inputs = den.lib.aspects.resolve "inputs" [] some-aspect;

this would return a module having all the inputs classes from some-aspect and its dependencies, then we would need to provide that to flake-file, maybe we need a custom nix run .#write-aspect-inputs den.aspects.some-aspect app, but that would overwrite the project flake.nix, so we need to consider specifying an output to that app.

@baltimore-balls, I like the idea of this feature, thanks for sharing it. perhaps add to #329

[Steven-S1020]

Being able to define flake inputs for default, perHost, perUser would be such a cool feature!

[vic]

@Steven-S1020 Yeah! I'd also like that be implemented. I still have to think a bit about it, more on the design side of things, I'll add an issue to allocate some time properly for it.