Environment shell aliases

[alecandido]

The content of environment.shellAliases is treated in a (at least) inconsistent way.

For Bash, it ends up in /etc/bashrc:

nix-darwin/modules/programs/bash/default.nix

Lines 48 to 71 in bbde06b

	environment.etc."bashrc".text = ''
	# /etc/bashrc: DO NOT EDIT -- this file has been generated automatically.
	# This file is read for interactive shells.
	[ -r "/etc/bashrc_$TERM_PROGRAM" ] && . "/etc/bashrc_$TERM_PROGRAM"
	# Only execute this file once per shell.
	if [ -n "$__ETC_BASHRC_SOURCED" -o -n "$NOSYSBASHRC" ]; then return; fi
	__ETC_BASHRC_SOURCED=1
	# Don't execute this file when running in a pure nix-shell.
	if [ "$IN_NIX_SHELL" = "pure" ]; then return; fi
	if [ -z "$__NIX_DARWIN_SET_ENVIRONMENT_DONE" ]; then
	. ${config.system.build.setEnvironment}
	fi
	# Return early if not running interactively, but after basic nix setup.
	[[ $- != *i* ]] && return
	# Make bash check its window size after a process completes
	shopt -s checkwinsize
	${config.system.build.setAliases.text}

while for ZSH, it's put in /etc/zprofile:

nix-darwin/modules/programs/zsh/default.nix

Lines 146 to 155 in bbde06b

	environment.etc."zprofile".text = ''
	# /etc/zprofile: DO NOT EDIT -- this file has been generated automatically.
	# This file is read for login shells.
	# Only execute this file once per shell.
	if [ -n "$__ETC_ZPROFILE_SOURCED" ]; then return; fi
	__ETC_ZPROFILE_SOURCED=1
	${concatStringsSep "\n" zshVariables}
	${config.system.build.setAliases.text}

(for both, only first and last lines are relevant)

Personally, I spend most of the time in a non-login shell, so it is a bit annoying to not have aliases defined there.
However, I'm not sure what is the most suitable recommendation, and whether you could abuse(?) zshenv for this purpose.
But I'm pretty sure it would make sense to have it consistent on the two shells.

[alecandido]

Btw, in NixOS the aliases are actually set in /etc/zshrc.

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/fcea2b6260dd566c28c894b4207a5f2b56c2cba3/nixos/modules/programs/zsh/zsh.nix#L279-L280

[madsbv]

Note that Home-Manager also sets aliases in the user's zshrc:
https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/blob/bfa7c06436771e3a0c666ccc6ee01e815d4c33aa/modules/programs/zsh.nix#L666

Personally, this caused quite a bit of confusion for me since Zellij seems to launch shells as interactive, non-login shells, so Home-Manager defined aliases worked as expected but Nix-Darwin defined aliases did not.

I think it makes semantically more sense to put aliases in zshrc, and that would bring consistency with NixOS and Home-Manager as well.