Any Emanix machine can be rebuilt from the configuration alone. If it is not in the flake, it does not exist.

Emanix (em·a·nix — *Em*acs + *Nix*OS) is a NixOS distribution where Emacs is the desktop. Not styled to look like one: EWM makes Emacs the Wayland compositor itself, so windows are buffers, frames are workspaces, and the editor's keybindings are the window manager's.

It is not an ISO. It is a flake — a formal specification of what a machine should be, which you apply to a NixOS installation. That is what makes the claim above testable rather than aspirational.

1. What the distribution is

Emanix ships one shape: a base system, an editor that is also a desktop, a terminal, a shell, a theme system, and the conventions needed to install a machine and bring it up for the first time.

It decides nothing about the facts of your hardware, your network, or your tooling — only the capability to describe them. Which GPU a box has, how its disks are partitioned and what network it joins are facts about a machine, and only the flake that consumes Emanix can know them. That boundary is the whole design, and it is why there are no roles — see Philosophy for the argument.

2. Start

Philosophy
Why legibility is the point, and what it costs.
Architecture
IOSHI, the two tiers, and how a host is composed.
Glossary
The vocabulary of these docs, fixed. One concept, one term.

3. Use

Keybindings
The compositor, modal editing, and every binding worth knowing.
Theming
One palette drives every surface. How it resolves, and how to add one.
Build and Update
Building, switching, proving a change inert, rolling back, garbage collection.
Network
Connecting, the modeline indicator, and why the ISO's tools are not the installed host's.
Browser
Launching Firefox, what the distribution themes, and why page colours are left alone.
Mail
A consumer mail stack plugged into Emacs, the secret store and the bin directory.

4. Deploy

Installation
Bare metal, from a live ISO. Two scripts and a passphrase.
Adding a Host
A machine file, a username, and a build — and the build tells you before you touch the machine.
Options
Every emanix.* setting, what it gates, and what it defaults to.
Secrets
Age-encrypted in the repository, decrypted at activation by each host's own key.

5. About

Components
What actually gets installed, by tier.
FAQ
The short answers.
Colophon
How this site is written and published, and why it is shaped that way.