Hey Heitor! I just authored ronix, a RON ↔ Nix interop library. While working on it I realized that cosmic-manager maintains its own pure-Nix RON parser and serializer in lib/ron.nix — and it turns out we've independently arrived at the same design: both projects use __type-tagged attrsets to represent RON types that don't map directly to Nix (enums, tuples, chars, optionals, maps, named structs).
Since we're solving the same problem with the same approach, I think it'd make sense for cosmic-manager to use ronix as a dependency instead of maintaining its own ~500-line implementation. This would free up maintenance effort and let both projects benefit from shared bug fixes and improvements.
What ronix brings to the table
The Nix library (nix/lib.nix) provides drop-in equivalents for everything in lib/ron.nix:
toRON / fromRON / importRON — same as cosmic-manager's, same __type conventionmkRON constructors (.char, .optional, .tuple, .enum, .map, .namedStruct, .raw)isRONType predicatemkRonService — a NixOS helper for RON-configured systemd services
On the Rust side, ronix also has a serde::Serializer that can turn any Rust struct into a valid Nix expression, plus a CLI interface — but the Nix library alone covers what cosmic-manager needs.
Bonus: migrating existing COSMIC configs
One thing this could unlock is a config migration tool. Right now, users switching to cosmic-manager have to manually rewrite their existing RON configs as Nix declarations. With ronix's fromRON, you could build something that reads the RON files from ~/.config/cosmic/ and ~/.local/share/cosmic/, parses them, and spits out the equivalent wayland.desktopManager.cosmic.* Nix config. That would make adoption a lot easier — bootstrap your declarative config from your current desktop state instead of starting from scratch.
Compatibility
- Same
__type convention, so cosmic-manager's lib/types.nix and lib/options.nix should work without changes
- Nix flakes, supports x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux
- MIT licensed
Happy to discuss and help with integration if there's interest!
Hey Heitor! I just authored ronix, a RON ↔ Nix interop library. While working on it I realized that cosmic-manager maintains its own pure-Nix RON parser and serializer in
lib/ron.nix— and it turns out we've independently arrived at the same design: both projects use__type-tagged attrsets to represent RON types that don't map directly to Nix (enums, tuples, chars, optionals, maps, named structs).Since we're solving the same problem with the same approach, I think it'd make sense for cosmic-manager to use ronix as a dependency instead of maintaining its own ~500-line implementation. This would free up maintenance effort and let both projects benefit from shared bug fixes and improvements.
What ronix brings to the table
The Nix library (
nix/lib.nix) provides drop-in equivalents for everything inlib/ron.nix:toRON/fromRON/importRON— same as cosmic-manager's, same__typeconventionmkRONconstructors (.char,.optional,.tuple,.enum,.map,.namedStruct,.raw)isRONTypepredicatemkRonService— a NixOS helper for RON-configured systemd servicesOn the Rust side, ronix also has a
serde::Serializerthat can turn any Rust struct into a valid Nix expression, plus a CLI interface — but the Nix library alone covers what cosmic-manager needs.Bonus: migrating existing COSMIC configs
One thing this could unlock is a config migration tool. Right now, users switching to cosmic-manager have to manually rewrite their existing RON configs as Nix declarations. With ronix's
fromRON, you could build something that reads the RON files from~/.config/cosmic/and~/.local/share/cosmic/, parses them, and spits out the equivalentwayland.desktopManager.cosmic.*Nix config. That would make adoption a lot easier — bootstrap your declarative config from your current desktop state instead of starting from scratch.Compatibility
__typeconvention, so cosmic-manager'slib/types.nixandlib/options.nixshould work without changesHappy to discuss and help with integration if there's interest!