| 23 Feb 2026 |
|  Amrit Amber joined the room. | 03:21:45 |
|  akjflare joined the room. | 03:31:44 |
| Amrit Amber | Hi everyone! I'm Amrit, a CS student at IIIT, currently based in Tokyo. I work mostly in C++, Python, and TypeScript, with experience in backend systems and infrastructure.
I've been going through the 2026 ideas list and I'd like to propose an original idea: NixOS Configuration Drift Detector & Reconciler.
NixOS guarantees reproducible builds and atomic activation, but it does not continuously verify that runtime state remains aligned with the declared configuration. In practice, systems can diverge from their intended state due to manual interventions, mutable state changes, or runtime inconsistencies.
The core idea is to build a NixOS module + CLI tool that detects and reports configuration drift between the declared NixOS configuration and the live system state.
Initial scope could include:
Comparing systemctl list-units output vs declared systemd.services
Detecting firewall rules that differ from the configured networking.firewall state
Checking user accounts against users.users
Verifying /etc contents against activation outputs
Identifying services running with mismatched derivations or binaries
The tool would generate structured drift reports with severity levels and clear explanations. A reconciliation mode could optionally restore safe classes of drift or generate suggested configuration patches.
Validation would be done using NixOS VM tests to simulate controlled drift scenarios and ensure correctness.
Effort: Medium (175h) to Large (350h), depending on how far reconciliation and diagnostics are taken.
I'd really appreciate feedback on whether this aligns with current ecosystem priorities and whether anyone would be interested in mentoring or refining the scope. Happy to draft a more detailed design document or open a PR to the ideas list.
GitHub: https://github.com/arkhamknight25
| 03:44:05 |
| akjflare | Hi everyone! I'm Alan, an undergraduate EE student in the Bay who has some experience in software dev. I'm currently working on various embedded systems and basic computer graphics, but I also have some higher-level projects under my belt. I've been a NixOS user for a little over a year now (so I am of course familiar with Nix), and I was quite interested in the issue surrounding setting up profile pictures declaratively. I encountered this issue myself as a user, but I elected to simply ignore it. I actually do have an idea to solve this, which involves storing the image file into the Nix store, then symlinking it into accountsservice/icons. Of course, I would need some more time to develop this solution, as I am unfamiliar with large codebases such as that of NixOS. Here's my GitHub account, feel free to take a look :D https://github.com/al-nf | 03:51:17 |
| akjflare | * Hi everyone! I'm Alan, an undergraduate EE student in the Bay who has some experience in software dev. I'm currently working on various embedded systems and basic computer graphics, but I also have some higher-level projects under my belt. I've been a NixOS user for a little over a year now (so I am of course familiar with Nix), and I was quite interested in the issue surrounding setting up profile pictures declaratively. I encountered this issue myself as a user, but I elected to simply go with the default grey profile picture. I actually do have an idea to solve this, which involves storing the image file into the Nix store, then symlinking it into accountsservice/icons. Of course, I would need some more time to develop this solution, as I am unfamiliar with large codebases such as that of NixOS. Here's my GitHub account, feel free to take a look :D https://github.com/al-nf | 03:55:05 |
| akjflare | * Hi everyone! I'm Alan, an undergraduate EE student in the Bay who has some experience in software dev. I'm currently working on various embedded systems and basic computer graphics, but I also have some higher-level projects under my belt. I've been a NixOS user for a little over a year now (so I am of course familiar with Nix), and I was quite interested in the issue surrounding setting up profile pictures declaratively. I encountered this issue myself as a user, but I elected to simply go with the default grey profile picture. I actually do have an idea to solve this, which involves storing the image file into the Nix store, then symlinking it into accountsservice/icons. I was also thinking about doing this with desktop wallpapers. Of course, I would need some more time to develop this solution, as I am unfamiliar with large codebases such as that of NixOS. Here's my GitHub account, feel free to take a look :D https://github.com/al-nf | 03:55:48 |
|  gaurav_aditya joined the room. | 08:51:12 |
|  @hexa:lossy.network left the room. | 10:33:19 |
 Dev Prashant | After going through it....... I'm really interested in contributing to the Security Tracker Improvements project for GSoC! Building scalable full-stack apps and tweaking UIs is exactly what I love doing, so tackling the tracker's backend workflows and frontend fixes sounds like a perfect fit. If there are any good first issues or specific parts of the codebase you'd recommend checking out first, I'm ready to dive in. | 11:29:38 |
|  Robert Hensing (roberth) joined the room. | 15:51:14 |
|  PRATHAMESH Naik joined the room. | 18:32:24 |
| 24 Feb 2026 |
|  catsarecute joined the room. | 08:49:58 |
| catsarecute | Hey! I'm a math undergrad and have been using NixOS for around 3 years now. Haven't really gotten into properly configuring stuff on my own until last year though. I primarily work with haskell and a lot of packages seem to be broken and this is a well documented issue. I'm considering this for a GSoC proposal and would love some guidance. | 08:58:43 |
| catsarecute | * Hey! I'm a math undergrad and have been using NixOS for around 3 years now. Haven't really gotten into properly configuring stuff on my own until last year though. I primarily work with haskell and a lot of packages seem to be broken and this is a well documented issue. I'm considering working on this for a GSoC proposal and would love some guidance. | 08:59:01 |
|  Yyovil joined the room. | 11:48:56 |
| Yyovil | Redacted or Malformed Event | 11:55:18 |
| 25 Feb 2026 |
|  Abdullah Zahid joined the room. | 12:02:36 |
|  Genius Joelraj joined the room. | 14:46:21 |
|  Skoh joined the room. | 14:48:06 |
|  Vaibhav Upadhyay joined the room. | 15:49:38 |
 vivekanandan_ks | Hi All
Using NixOS and Nix for almost 2 years. I don't care even if I'm officially being included in the GSoC or not. But I wanna do contribute and learn from it.
I'm interested in things like creating NixOS or Home manager module, nixpkgs packaging, or anything that needs some help through contributions. | 18:19:33 |
| vivekanandan_ks | Any mentors please utilise my time, energy and passion for this | 18:22:53 |
|  Tristan Ross joined the room. | 18:32:22 |
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| nim65s changed their display name from Guilhem to nim65s. | 19:56:52 |
|  NixOS Moderation Botchanged room power levels. | 23:41:38 |
|  lassuluschanged room power levels. | 23:42:12 |
| lassuluschanged room power levels. | 23:42:19 |
| 26 Feb 2026 |
|  James joined the room. | 01:03:41 |
| James | Hi! I'm James, an undergraduate CS student. I've been running NixOS in my homelab for over a year across 15 systems: VPSs, home servers, laptops, and VMs. I've written NixOS modules and derivations, have an open PR to nixpkgs (#492556) and built a library in pure Nix to help with scaling my homelab. I would be very interested in working on the modular services migration project. Here's my GitHub: https://github.com/James-1701 and I would love to connect with a mentor to talk further. | 03:37:48 |
