nh roadmap

[NotAShelf]

Hey all! With nh 4.2.0 on the horizon I'd like to outline future goals of nh. As such I am creating this roadmap to keep track of features I'd like to work on the future and give nh users a place to request new features. This issue will be regularly updated as per user requests and based on maintainers' discretion on what to add next.

Close Future

Before 4.2.0

• There are still a few bugs remaining in NH that need fixing. Recent PRs have managed to mostly address those, but it'd be great to close outstanding issue reports before 4.2
• Alternative privilege escalation utilities (fix: support to other privilege elevation programs. #92)

After 4.2.0

• NixOS VM tests & snapshot tests
• Benchmarks with Criterion or similar
• Implement nh home info and nh darwin info commands similar to nh os info for displaying relevant generations
• nh os edit to open flake/configuration directory with $EDITOR. This is a part of the feature-parity section, but it's an easy task so I'd like to get it out of my way when I get the chance.
• An offline search implementation, perhaps even a search TUI featuring something like rippkgs.

I think one of the first issues we'd like to focus on is feaure-parity with nixos-rebuild and the new nixos-rebuild-ng. I don't believe the latter is very different, but worth considering nevertheless if we strive for mass adoption of nh

• nixos-rebuild
  • switch
  • boot
  • test
  • build
  • dry-build
  • dry-activate
  • edit
  • build-image
  • build-vm (Add build-vm subcommand to nh os build to build a VM start script. #208)
  • build-vm-with-bootloader (Add build-vm subcommand to nh os build to build a VM start script. #208)
  • --upgrade (flakes)
  • --upgrade (channels)
  • --install-bootloader
  • --no-build-nix, --fast (only this is supported)
  • --rollback nixos: implement rollbacks #265
  • --builders (via passthrough of options)
  • --profile-name
  • --build-host, --target-host nixos: add --target-host and --build-host options #276
    • --use-substitutes, --use-remote-sudo (nh as a deployment tool)
  • --flake
  • -I nixos-config=...

Distant Future

While not exactly a priority, there are some features I'd like to implement to extend nh's position to something beyond just a structured bash script. Namely I want to consolidate relevant NixOS-adjecent tooling into nh as subcommands.

Critical

• nh {os,home,darwin} generate-config to replace nixos-generate-config and similar HM/Nix-Darwin counterparts (are there any? Can we use flake templates instead here?)
• nh os enter to replace nixos-enter

[viperML]

@NotAShelf I've set you as the admin of the repo, let me know if it was configured properly.

[NotAShelf]

Seeems to have worked, thanks. Are you quitting working on nh entirely?

[viperML]

I see myself doing some PR for a minor feature, but NH as I envisioned it years ago is feature complete. For this reason I think it would be better to put someone else in the spotlight

[ahoneybun]

Thanks for the work everyone! I hope to be able to use it for deployment in the near future! I already use to test changes in merge requests!