bug: nushell module w/ xdg.enable = true; on macOS has incorrect env and nu variables

[rykugur]

Are you following the right branch?

• My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

I got a new MacBook the other day, but I also experienced this same issue on my work MacBook. I do not experience this issue on nixOS with the same HM module below.

With xdg.enable = false; (or commented out), my nushell config files get written to ~/Library/Application Support/nushell.

With xdg.enable = true;', my nushell config files get written to ~/.config/nushell.

Based on my reading of the HM module nix file, this is working as expected. In the former case above, everything (my config) works just fine. But I want to enable XDG for other apps that utilize it.

In the latter case, while the files show up in the right location:

the only env variable for XDG that seems to get set is XDG_DATA_DIRS:

in addition, my $nu.data-dir and $nu.config-dir variables are incorrect:

Config files

Here's my nushell HM module:

{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:
let
  cfg = config.rhx.nushell;
  nu-scripts = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
    owner = "nushell";
    repo = "nu_scripts";
    rev = "e380c8a355b4340c26dc51c6be7bed78f87b0c71";
    sha256 = "sha256-b2AeWiHRz1LbiGR1gOJHBV3H56QP7h8oSTzg+X4Shk8=";
  };
  # nupm = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
  #   owner = "nushell";
  #   repo = "nupm";
  #   rev = "7e3e5779ff86a1b8dadcf7a90eee2e3dcfe449df";
  #   sha256 = "sha256-BNFBQ9kK2/P7mjdBqMj/8cbBPVogK0n1qcx6dx9mer8=";
  # };
in {
  options.rhx.nushell = {
    enable = lib.mkEnableOption "Enable nushell home-manager module.";
  };

  config = lib.mkIf cfg.enable {
    programs.nushell = {
      enable = true;
      extraEnv = ''
        $env.LOCAL_CONFIG_FILE = $"($nu.data-dir)/vendor/autoload/config.nu"
        $env.DOTFILES_DIR = $"($env.HOME)/.dotfiles"
        $env.config.table.show_empty = false
        source ~/.dotfiles/configs/nu/env.nu
      '';
      extraConfig = ''
        source ${nu-scripts}/themes/nu-themes/catppuccin-mocha.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/adb/adb-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/bat/bat-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/curl/curl-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/docker/docker-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/git/git-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/just/just-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/nix/nix-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/npm/npm-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/pnpm/pnpm-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/rg/rg-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/ssh/ssh-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-completions/zellij/zellij-completions.nu
        source ${nu-scripts}/custom-menus/zoxide-menu.nu
        $env.config.hooks.pre_prompt = (
          $env.config.hooks.pre_prompt | append (source ${nu-scripts}/nu-hooks/nu-hooks/direnv/config.nu)
        )
        source ~/.dotfiles/configs/nu/config.nu
      '';
    };

    programs.direnv = {
      enable = true;
      enableNushellIntegration = true;
      nix-direnv.enable = true;
    };

    # programs.carapace = {
    #   enable = true;
    #   enableBashIntegration = false;
    #   enableNushellIntegration = true;
    #   enableZshIntegration = false;
    # };

    programs.starship = { enableNushellIntegration = true; };

    # programs.zoxide = {
    #   enable = true;
    #   enableNushellIntegration = true;
    # };
  };
}

Maintainer CC

@Philipp-M
@JoaquinTrinanes
@aidalgol

System information

I installed nix w/ the Determinate installer, per the instructions in the nix-darwin repo. I chose the vanilla nix install.

~/.config/nushell> nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"aarch64-darwin"`
 - host os: `Darwin 24.3.0, macOS 15.3.1`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `no`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.24.12`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/store/k8nkf470zpidpa5nh76lh2x6rxfzpwa4-source`

[rykugur]

I tried setting XDG_CONFIG_HOME via both system.environmentVariables and home.sessionVariables, neither worked.

On my work MacBook, I worked around this issue (I think, it was a while ago and was a hack I've since mostly forgotten) by creating an environment.plist file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ that exported the XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable to /Users/{user}/.config. After a reboot, this seems to have worked in that nushell is now sourcing my config files in ~/.config, however, $nu.data-dir and other $nu.* variables are still set to ~/Library. Maybe this is a nushell bug?

EDIT: Another reboot and my config was not being sourced until I set xdg.enable = false; and rebuilt.