Stylix is a NixOS module which applies the same color scheme, font and wallpaper to a wide range of applications and desktop environments. It also exports utilities for you to use the theme in custom parts of your configuration.
Stylix is built using base16.nix, a library which processes themes created for base16 or Tinted Theming.
You can install Stylix into your NixOS configuration using Flakes. This will provide theming for system level programs such as bootloaders, splash screens, and display managers.
{
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
stylix.url = "github:danth/stylix";
};
outputs = { nixpkgs, stylix, ... }: {
nixosConfigurations."«hostname»" = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
system = "x86_64-linux";
modules = [ stylix.nixosModules.stylix ./configuration.nix ];
};
};
}Minimal flake.nix for a NixOS configuration.
Many applications cannot be configured system wide, so Stylix will also need Home Manager to be able to change their settings within your home directory.
Installing Home Manager as a NixOS module is highly recommended if you don't use it already. This will combine it with your existing configuration, so you don't need to run any extra commands when you rebuild, and the theme you set in NixOS will automatically be used for Home Manager too.
When Stylix is installed to a NixOS configuration, it will automatically set up its Home Manager modules if it detects that Home Manager is available. You can theoretically use it without installing Home Manager, however most features will be unavailable.
If you would prefer to use the standalone version of Home Manager, you can install Stylix directly into your Home Manager configuration instead. This could be useful if you are on a different Linux distribution, or a NixOS machine which is managed by someone else.
{
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
stylix.url = "github:danth/stylix";
};
outputs = { nixpkgs, home-manager, stylix, ... }: {
homeConfigurations."«username»" = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.x86_64-linux;
modules = [ stylix.nixosModules.stylix ./home.nix ];
};
};
}Minimal flake.nix for a Home Manager configuration.
If you choose to use both NixOS and Home Manager but configure them separately, you will need to copy the settings described below into both of your configurations, as keeping them separate means that they cannot follow each other automatically.
If you haven't enabled flakes yet or don't want to use this feature, default.nix
re-exports all the flake outputs, without requiring flakes to be enabled. This means
that once you have a copy of this repo, using either a local checkout,
niv, or any other method, you can import it to
get the NixOS module as the nixosModules.stylix attribute and the Home Manager
module as the homeManagerModules.stylix attribute.
let
stylix = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "danth";
repo = "stylix";
rev = "...";
sha256 = "...";
};
in {
imports = [ (import stylix).homeManagerModules.stylix ];
stylix.image = ./wallpaper.jpg;
}Example usage of the Home Manager module without flakes.
To start theming, 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=";
};
}At this point you should be able to rebuild and have a reasonable color scheme generated based on the image you chose.
If you only set a wallpaper, Stylix will use a genetic algorithm to create a color scheme. The quality of these automatically generated schemes can vary, but more colorful images tend to have better results.
You can force the generation of a light or dark theme using the polarity option:
{
stylix.polarity = "dark";
}After rebuilding, the full theme can be previewed in a web browser by opening either of these files:
/etc/stylix/palette.htmlif you are using NixOS, or$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/stylix/palette.html(by default~/.config/stylix/palette.html) if you are using home-manager without NixOS.
If you would prefer to choose a color scheme, you can use anything from the Tinted Theming repository, or another file following that format.
To use Tinted Theming, either add their repository to your Flake inputs, or fetch it as follows:
let
base16-schemes = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "tinted-theming";
repo = "base16-schemes";
rev = "...";
sha256 = "...";
};
in { }Then set the following option to the path of the color scheme you would like to use:
{
stylix.base16Scheme = "${base16-schemes}/gruvbox-dark-hard.yaml";
}base16Scheme can also accept other formats as supported by
mkSchemeAttrs.
For convenience, it is possible to override parts of stylix.base16Scheme using
stylix.override. Anything that
base16.nix accepts as override is
valid.
When using both the Home Manager and NixOS modules, both the system overrides
and the user-provided one are used in the user configuration if
stylix.base16Scheme is not changed in the user config. If that is the case,
only the user override is used.
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 look more uniform, you could replace the serif font with the sans-serif font:
{
stylix.fonts.serif = config.stylix.fonts.sansSerif;
}Or even choose monospace for everything:
{
stylix.fonts = {
serif = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
sansSerif = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
emoji = config.stylix.fonts.monospace;
};
}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.
Note that if the wallpaper image for a user is different to the rest of the
system, a separate theme will always be generated for them, even though their
base16Scheme option has not been overridden. If you want that user to follow
the system theme while having a different wallpaper, you will need to manually
copy the system theme into their configuration. (This behaviour is necessary as
otherwise it would be impossible to use a generated theme for a user while
having a manually created theme for the rest of the system.)
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.
The Stylix website has a list of the available targets for NixOS and for Home Manager respectively.