Stylix

Stylix is a NixOS module which applies the same color scheme, font and wallpaper to a wide range of applications and desktop environments. In some cases, theming can be activated as early as the bootloader!

It also exports utilities for you to apply the theming to custom parts of your configuration.

Stylix is built using base16.nix, a library which handles the generation of config files from templates provided by the base16 project.

Installation

You can install Stylix into your NixOS configuration using Flakes, for example:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    stylix.url = "github:danth/stylix";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, stylix }: {
    nixosConfigurations."<hostname>" = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [ stylix.nixosModules.stylix ];
    };
  };
}

If Home Manager is available, Stylix will use it to configure apps which don't support system wide settings. The majority of apps are that way, so setting up Home Manager as a NixOS module is highly recommended if you don't use it already.

If you prefer using Home Manager separately from NixOS, you can import homeManagerModules.stylix into your Home Manager configuration instead. In this case, you will need to copy the settings described later into both your NixOS and Home Manager configurations, as they will not be able to follow each other automatically.

It's also possible to use either NixOS or Home Manager without the other, however that would make some features unavailable.

Wallpaper

To get started, you need to set a wallpaper image.

stylix.image = ./wallpaper.png;

The option accepts derivations as well as paths, so you can fetch a wallpaper directly from the internet:

stylix.image = pkgs.fetchurl {
  url = "https://www.pixelstalk.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Epic-Anime-Awesome-Wallpapers.jpg";
  sha256 = "enQo3wqhgf0FEPHj2coOCvo7DuZv+x5rL/WIo4qPI50=";
};

The wallpaper is the only option which is required! On home-manager used from a NixOS configuration, the system image will be used by default, thus nothing is required at all.

Color scheme

Automatic color schemes

If you only set a wallpaper, Stylix will use a genetic algorithm to choose a color scheme based on it. The quality of these automatically generated schemes can vary, but more colorful images tend to have better results.

You can force a light or dark theme using the polarity option:

stylix.polarity = "dark";

The generated scheme can be viewed in a web browser at file:///etc/stylix/palette.html.

Manual color schemes

Alternatively, you can choose a pre-made colorscheme from the Tinted Theming repository. Either add the repository to your Flake inputs, or fetch it as follows:

let base16-schemes = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
  owner = "tinted-theming";
  repo = "base16-schemes";
  rev = "...";
  sha256 = "...";
};

Then you can choose which file you would like to use:

stylix.base16Scheme = "${base16-schemes}/gruvbox-dark-hard.yaml";

If you want to do anything more complex - such as running your own program to generate the colour scheme - base16Scheme can accept any argument which mkSchemeAttrs supports.

If the system base16Scheme is set this way, it will be used as default for the corresponding home-manager option only if the user config has the same image. If the user has changed the image, the default value will be the generated color scheme from this picture.

Fonts

The default combination of fonts is:

stylix.fonts = {
  serif = {
    package = pkgs.dejavu_fonts;
    name = "DejaVu Serif";
  };

  sansSerif = {
    package = pkgs.dejavu_fonts;
    name = "DejaVu Sans";
  };

  monospace = {
    package = pkgs.dejavu_fonts;
    name = "DejaVu Sans Mono";
  };

  emoji = {
    package = pkgs.noto-fonts-emoji;
    name = "Noto Color Emoji";
  };
};

These can be changed as you like.

To make things more uniform, you can replace the serif font with sans-serif:

stylix.fonts.serif = config.stylix.fonts.sansSerif;

Or even use monospace for everything:

stylix.fonts = {
  serif = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
  sansSerif = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
  emoji = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
};

Multi-user configurations

For those apps which are configured through Home Manager, Stylix allows you to choose a different theme for each user. This can be done by setting the theme within Home Manager for that user rather than at the system level.

By default, all users follow the system theme. This can be turned off by setting stylix.homeManagerIntegration.followSystem = false, in which case you must explicitly set a theme for each user. Setting that option is not required just to be able to override an individual theme.

If you would like to disable all Home Manager activity for a user, you can set stylix.homeManagerIntegration.autoImport = false, then manually import the Home Manager module for the users for which it should be enabled.

Turning targets on and off

In Stylix terms, a target is anything which can have colors, fonts or a wallpaper applied to it. Each module in this repository should correspond to a target of the same name.

Each target has an option like stylix.targets.«target».enable to turn its styling on or off. Normally, it's turned on automatically when the target is installed. You can set stylix.autoEnable = false to opt out of this behaviour, in which case you'll need to manually enable each target you want to be styled.

Targets are different between Home Manager and NixOS, and sometimes available in both cases. If both are available, it is always correct to enable both.