I tried setting up nix-darwin with home-manager, but it just made the system more confusing to operate. Ended up using home-manager standalone without flakes. Works like a charm.
I stuck with home-manager standalone for many years, but after setting up other nixos configs I found myself wanting to 1) align systems more closely and 2) manage more system-level stuff on darwin. It took some time to rework my standalone modules to nix-darwin modules but overall I'm really happy with the result.
I run everything through an idempotent 'rebuild' script, so I don't really notice any day-to-day difference between nixos, standalone HM, or nix-darwin.
I run everything through an idempotent 'rebuild' script, so I don't really notice any day-to-day difference between nixos, standalone HM, or nix-darwin.