User persistence only links/binds persistent directories, ignoring files

[Hugo-Heagren]

I am so confused.

I have a relatively simple config. It works flawlessly for system files but I also want to persist some files and some directories in my home directory (and have everything else in my home dir wiped on boot).

I have declarations in my config to persist a few different files and dirs in /home/hugo. They are all persisted (i.e. in /persist) between boots, but after booting, the only one which shows up in my home dir is config/.git -- the others are not mounted/symlinked. What could be causing this?

Some more details:

I want to persist these things: .config/git (a directory) and .config/emacs/init.el, .config/enironment.d/10-home-manager.conf, .bash_history (all files). Only the directory shows up after boots, even though I have this in /persistent:

/persistent/home/hugo
├─ .bash_history
├─ .config
  ├─ emacs
  │   └─ init.el
  └─ environment.d
  │  └─ 10-home-manager.conf -> <long nix store filepath>
  └─ git
     └─ config -> <long nix store filepath>	 

Here are some other strange behaviours:

If I run nixos-rebuild switch then all the directories necessary for this file structure are placed in my home directory: I have ~/.config/emacs, ~/.config/git and ~/.config/environment.d.

But ~/.config/emacs doesn't contain a file init.el. ~/.config/environment.d does contain 10-home-manager.conf, and ~/.config/git does contain config.

If I then reboot, only the git directory is persisted. The other two directories are removed entirely.

What's going on? What am I doing wrong?

[Hugo-Heagren]

Note to self/anyone else -- discussion in #97 seems highly relevant here, though the specific errors/issues which originally motivated it are now 404.

[alfarelcynthesis]

I seem to be having the same issue, root files work fine, directories for both work, but home files aren't symlinked at all. (I may have fixed it, somehow? I'm honestly not sure if it is fixed, and if so, how)

I think I figured my issue out, it does work correctly (assuming I actually apply the changes, and at least when using the nixos module), but the files still show up in my utility command to show the contents of my tmpfs, which was throwing me off, along with one forgotten switch along the way.