Is the nix function mkOutOfStoreSymlink still relevant when using nixCats?

[mettavi]

Hi, I recently installed nixCats and it is working well so far.

I have one question though about the following nix config that I was using:

    xdg.configFile = {
      # link without copying to nix store (manage externally) - must use absolute paths
      # mkOutOfStoreSymlink is required to allow the lazy-lock.json file to be writable
      "nvim".source =
        mkOutOfStoreSymlink "${config.home.homeDirectory}/${nix_repo}/home/shared/dots/nvim";
    };

This function allows nix to manage config files without copying them to the nix store. They are loaded directly from the local file system in the git repo. This is useful for apps which write directly to the config files. In this case, lazy.nvim tries to write to lazy-lock.json but it cannot if the file is linked to the nix store. That's why I used mkOutOfStoreSymlink to prevent this problem.

But does nixCats still work with this settings, or does it copy the neovim lua configuration to the nix store regardless? If so, then I guess I should just link the lua config to my home directory with the regular home.file setting?...

I am not currently seeing any errors with lazy.nvim being able to write to lazy-lock.json, but I just wanted to make sure that the mkOutOfStoreSymlink config makes sense when using nixCats, and if not, whether home.file will work ok in its place.

Many thanks for any clarification!

[BirdeeHub]

No, setting unwrappedCfgDir to point somewhere is basically the same thing.

mkOutOfStoreSymlink writes only a symlink to an out of store file into the store

nixCats loads you configuration, and you can write any path into the store for it to load, inside or outside of the store.

However the luaPath value accepts only store paths, there is an unwrappedCfgPath setting for out of store paths, which you can swap between via nix, or define a variable to define to use to swap between them