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Standardise nix/ directory structure: configuration and partition conventions

Problem

The nix/ directory structure is currently inconsistent across repositories:

  • Some repos use nix/configuration.nix as a monolithic config file
  • Some repos use nix/dev.nix at the top level for the dev partition
  • There is no clear convention for when to split nix/configuration.nix into nix/configuration/*.nix

Proposal

Standardise two conventions:

1. Partition modules: nix/partitions/dev.nix

Instead of nix/dev.nix, use nix/partitions/dev.nix. This is more descriptive and scales if additional partitions are introduced.

2. Configuration: nix/configuration.nix vs nix/configuration/*.nix

  • For simple repos with a few config items: nix/configuration.nix (single file)
  • When there are multiple semantic concerns: split into nix/configuration/ directory

Open question: At what threshold should configuration be split into multiple files? What are the guiding principles?

Questions for the team

  • @fancypants — From a theoretical/design perspective: at what threshold should nix/configuration.nix be split into nix/configuration/*.nix? What principle should guide this decision (number of concerns? lines of code? semantic independence?)
  • @smartypants — Implementation feasibility: does nix/partitions/dev.nix work cleanly with import-tree and mkPartitionModule?
  • @locallycompact — Final call on the convention once we have input.

Context

Raised by @locallycompact during review of ongoing Nixica Unification 1.0 migrations. Currently in-flight MRs (ghc-common-hadrian!8, agent-roster!1) use different patterns.