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Getting Started

Ready to create your own clan and manage a fleet of machines? Follow these simple steps to get started.

By the end of this guide, you'll have a fresh NixOS configuration ready to push to one or more machines. You'll create a new git repository and a flake, and all you need is at least one machine to push to. This is the easiest way to begin, and we recommend you to copy your existing configuration into this new setup!

Prerequisites

Clan depends on nix installed on your system. Run the following command to install nix.

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install

If you already have installed Nix, make sure you have the nix-command and flakes configuration enabled in your ~/.config/nix/nix.conf. The determinate installer already comes with this configuration by default.

# /etc/nix/nix.conf or ~/.config/nix/nix.conf
experimental-features = nix-command flakes

If you run NixOS the nix binary is already installed.

You will also need to enable the flakes and nix-commands experimental features in your configuration.nix:

{ nix.settings.experimental-features = [ "nix-command" "flakes" ]; }

Clan doesn't offer dedicated support for other operating systems yet.

Step 1: Add Clan CLI to Your Shell

Add the Clan CLI into your development workflow:

nix shell git+https://git.clan.lol/clan/clan-core#clan-cli

You can find reference documentation for the clan cli program here.

Alternatively you can check out the help pages directly: 

clan --help

Step 2: Initialize Your Project

If you want to migrate an existing project, follow this guide.

Set the foundation of your Clan project by initializing it as follows:

clan flakes create my-clan

This command creates the flake.nix and .clan-flake files for your project. It will also generate files from a default template, to help show general clan usage patterns.

Step 3: Verify the Project Structure

Ensure that all project files exist by running:

cd my-clan
tree

This should yield the following:

.
├── flake.nix
├── machines
│   ├── jon
│   │   ├── configuration.nix
│   │   └── hardware-configuration.nix
│   └── sara
│       ├── configuration.nix
│       └── hardware-configuration.nix
└── modules
    └── shared.nix

5 directories, 9 files

clan machines list

jon
sara

Success

You just successfully bootstrapped your first clan directory.