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Install on Nix and NixOS

Install ~alter’s L3 sovereign daemon on NixOS, Nix-on-Linux, Nix-on-macOS, and any reproducible-build environment that consumes Nix flakes. The flake exposes a default package, an apps entry for nix run, a NixOS module, and a home-manager module, all wrapping the upstream truealter PyPI distribution via fetchPypi.

What you get

  • •alter-runtime binary on $PATH.
  • •NixOS module nixosModules.alter-runtime registering a systemd user service.
  • •home-manager module homeManagerModules.alter-runtime for per-user installs.
  • •Default config root at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alter/ and runtime socket at $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/alter-runtime.sock.

Install

Pick the install path that matches your setup. The flake form is recommended for reproducible-build users; the tarball form is the legacy nix-env path.

nix run "https://releases.truealter.com/nix/alter-runtime/latest.tar.gz"

Need the CLI too? The alter CLI is distributed via npm and works alongside the daemon. See the npm install guide for details.

Start the daemon

When using the NixOS or home-manager module, the systemd user service is registered automatically. For ad-hoc nix profile installs, start the daemon directly:

bash
systemctl --user enable --now alter-runtime.service

Verify

bash
alter-runtime --version
systemctl --user status alter-runtime.service

Cross-platform unity

However a person installs alter-runtime, the runtime they get is the same runtime everyone else gets: same socket protocol, same ~handle resolution, same DNS-TXT discovery, same federation endpoints. The full operative invariants are documented in packaging/README.md.

Next steps

Getting started

Bind a ~handle and make your first authenticated request.

~handle protocol

How ~handle resolution works on top of the running daemon.