Nixmac

If you've ever tried to configure your Mac with Nix-darwin, you know it's like learning a whole new language just to change your terminal prompt. Nixmac speaks human. Just tell it what you want—"I need Python, VS Code, and my dotfiles"—and it writes the Nix, builds it, and applies it safely. Your Mac becomes reproducible and version-controlled without you needing to become a Nix wizard.

Built on top of nix-darwin, Nixpkgs, home-manager, and Homebrew, Nixmac scaffolds sensible templates, imports your existing flakes, and scans your machine to find what you've already tweaked. It detects your customizations via read-only commands, groups them by category, and turns them into code you can actually keep. The live build feature streams every phase in real-time so you're not staring at a spinner wondering what's happening—and if something fails, it rolls back automatically. Your running system stays untouched until the build passes.

The AI inference is where it gets interesting. Use their hosted models with zero setup, plug in your own API key, or run fully offline with Ollama. It's pay-as-you-go through Polar Pro at $4.99/month with device sync included. No subscription trap, no lock-in.

Nixmac makes Nix-darwin accessible to mere mortals. Finally, your Mac config can be as reproducible as your Docker containers.