So in general it looks like this for me now:

[---SNIP---]
      sys = system: mods:
        nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {

          inherit system;
          
          specialArgs = {inherit inputs; } ;

          extraModules = [
            colmena.nixosModules.deploymentOptions
          ];
          
          modules = [
            self.nixosModule
            home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager

            ./common
          ] ++ mods;
        };

    in rec {

      colmena = {
        meta = {
          description = "My personal machines";
          nixpkgs = import nixpkgs {
            system = "x86_64-linux";
            overlays = [ nur.overlay ];
          };
        };

      } // builtins.mapAttrs (name: value: {
        nixpkgs.system = value.config.nixpkgs.system;
        imports = value._module.args.modules;
      }) (self.nixosConfigurations);
[---SNAP---]

In reply to @buckley310:matrix.org
i think my ideal scenario would be for nixosConfigurations to import the colmena module explicitly, and then nxiosConfigurations to be read directly by colmena... though i do not claim this to be an easy lift :D

I think it's a little weird to require nixpkgs to be set (because it requires a system set which may change at any point, depending on where you're deploying from). Sure, right now, I may be using x86_64-linux, but I may want to use aarch64-linux or some other arch at any time.

I would expect, if all of the target hosts have a matching nodeNixpkgs entry, that meta.nixpkgs wouldn't be required.

Even better, if it was combined with a deployment.nixpkgs option that replaces the meta.nodeNixpkgs option.

I may be able to work on this, if this is desired by more than just me.

IMHO, it makes more sense to configure the used nixpkgs inside of the node's config, instead of in the meta attrset.

See https://github.com/zhaofengli/colmena/issues/55.

Please use the following as a test:

let
  nixpkgs_2111 = builtins.fetchTarball {
    url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/f6ddd55d5f9d5eca08df138c248008c1ba73ecec.tar.gz";
    sha256 = "03ms1mk4m4ni3bxjzdqngxvwyvh3rn7yb8ybzjlg62r9iv3l0ppa";
  };
  nixpkgs_unstable = builtins.fetchTarball {
    url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/554d2d8aa25b6e583575459c297ec23750adb6cb.tar.gz";
    sha256 = "01yfqslnkyrfb5yjfablhvw830iw0za3mab4n03a0ldyq5ac6wh1";
  };
in {
  meta.nixpkgs = import nixpkgs_2111 { system = "x86_64-linux"; };

  alpha = { pkgs, ... }: {
    deployment.nixpkgs = import nixpkgs_unstable {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
    };

    # Does not exist in 21.11
    nix.settings.trusted-users = [ "zhaofeng" ];
    boot.isContainer = true;
  };
}

In reply to @winterqt:nixos.dev
Zhaofeng Li: How did you determine that the change in e58dde1be08cf7fbac7299e928b6d0e143edbec9 would fix #50? Like, what was your debug process?

In reply to @winterqt:nixos.dev
Zhaofeng Li: How did you determine that the change in e58dde1be08cf7fbac7299e928b6d0e143edbec9 would fix #50? Like, what was your debug process?

In reply to @zhaofeng:zhaofeng.li
Then I added traces to the split docs build process in documentation.nix, and found out that it was trying to do a removePrefix on the full module paths using modulesPath, and remembered that I was explicitly setting modulesPath in Colmena

In reply to @winterqt:nixos.dev
got it -- why were you setting it in the first place, anyways?

In reply to @winterqt:nixos.dev
does Colmena add much overhead to the underlying things it does? or does speed depend on build speed + ssh connection latency + multiple ssh connection handshakes (unless you use ControlMaster)?