Dendritic Flake Conversion

Expert guidance for converting Nix flakes to the dendritic pattern with flake-parts - where every Nix file except entry points is a top-level module.

What is the Dendritic Pattern?

The dendritic pattern uses a top-level configuration - commonly flake-parts, though it does not have to be (lib.evalModules directly also works) - where:

• Every Nix file is a module of the top-level configuration, except entry-point files such as flake.nix and default.nix
• Each file implements a single feature across all configurations it applies to
• File paths name features, not types or configuration classes
• Lower-level configs (NixOS, home-manager, nix-darwin) are stored as option values using deferredModule type

Key benefit: Files can share values via top-level config, eliminating specialArgs pass-through patterns.

Evaluation cost depends on the configuration; measure representative hosts before making performance claims. Use the tiered validation in the Migration Checklist while iterating.

Anti-patterns

Mirrors the upstream project's guidance - keep these in mind when writing modules: