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ADR-005 — Multi-host: one repo, hosts/<name>/ subdir

Status: Accepted

Context​

Most users have more than one machine and want to share overrides between them, but per-host divergence (graphics drivers, hostname, services) is the norm.

Decision​

A single user-packages repo holds one flake at the root and one subdirectory per host under hosts/<hostname>/. Each host has its own glix.toml and default.nix. Shared Nix may live anywhere outside hosts/<host>/; common practice is a shared/ directory imported from each host's default.nix. The default host is $(hostname); glix --host NAME selects another.

Consequences​

  • Cross-host sharing is a normal Nix import, no special tooling.
  • glix always reads/writes a host-qualified manifest path; no global manifest exists.
  • A user with one machine sees hosts/<hostname>/ with no extra burden.
  • Per-host overrides extend to the Nix system tuple via [settings] system = "...", so a single repo can declare both x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux hosts.