NixOS Syllabus

NixOS — 30-day syllabus

Stage I — Nix Foundations (Days 1–8)

Day	Topics	90-Day Sources
1	Lab setup, why Nix, store & language basics	Lab 0 + Days 1–3
2	Functions, laziness & nixpkgs lib	Days 4–5
3	Derivations, modern CLI & first flake	Days 6–8
4	Classic CLI & Stage I gate	Days 9–10
5	NixOS install, flake host & generations	Days 11–13
6	Users, networking & system packages	Days 14–16
7	systemd services & NixOS modules	Days 17–19
8	Gate I — Boot, filesystems & checkpoint	Days 20–22

Stage II — Daily Driver (Days 9–15)

Day	Topics	90-Day Sources
9	Flake layout, lock management & Home Manager	Days 23–25
10	HM files/XDG, HM services & direnv	Days 26–28
11	flake-parts, checks, overlays & Gate II	Days 29–32
12	Secrets: sops-nix & agenix	Days 33–35
13	Hardening, firewall & TLS reverse proxy	Days 36–38
14	PostgreSQL, nixos-containers & Podman	Days 39–41
15	Gate III — Observability, K3s & checkpoint	Days 42–44

Stage III — Packaging & Fleet (Days 16–22)

Day	Topics	90-Day Sources
16	stdenv phases, fetchers & Go packaging	Days 45–47
17	Python/Rust packaging, patching & outputs	Days 48–50
18	Debug builds, nixpkgs layout & binary caches	Days 51–53
19	Remote builders, reproducibility & Gate IV	Days 54–56
20	Disko, impermanence & deploy-rs	Days 57–59
21	Colmena, shared modules & nixos-generators	Days 60–62
22	Gate V — Terraform, nixosTest & CI	Days 63–66

Stage IV — Mastery & Capstone (Days 23–30)

Day	Topics	90-Day Sources
23	GC, Secure Boot, backups & Gate V	Days 67–70
24	Evaluator internals, module system & store daemon	Days 71–73
25	Performance, CA derivations & advanced testing	Days 74–76
26	Ecosystem, comparisons & upgrade planning	Days 77–80
27	Troubleshooting & architecture review	Days 81–82
28	Capstone: flake, host & secrets	Days 83–85
29	Capstone: deploy, CI & disaster recovery	Days 86–89
30	Gate VI — Retrospective & NixOS roadmap	Day 90