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ADR-003 — Manifest-driven, glix writes one file

Status: Accepted

Context​

Letting a Go program edit arbitrary Nix is fragile. Letting users hand-edit generated Nix invites drift.

Decision​

glix writes only hosts/<host>/glix.toml. A static lib/importManifest.nix in core reads the TOML and produces module lists. The user-packages flake.nix is generated once by glix init and only ever mutated by glix inside delimited regions:

# >>> glix-managed inputs >>>
# <<< glix-managed inputs <<<

# >>> glix-managed hosts >>>
# <<< glix-managed hosts <<<

These markers are the only surface the patcher touches.

Consequences​

  • No Nix parser in Go.
  • Users can freely add Nix files under shared/ or hosts/<host>/ without touching glix-managed regions.
  • Manifest schema becomes a versioned interface (schema = 1). Additive fields preserve compat (omitempty in the encoder, permissive decode in the loader); a breaking change bumps schema and forces an explicit migration.
  • The manifest is human-readable, diffable, and grep-friendly.