Start blank

The from-scratch desktop: no optional rooms, no claimed hotkeys, nothing that changes how the Mac behaves. Then add rooms one at a time.

Blank is a desktop that selects nothing. It is the from-scratch choice, and it exists so that "I'll build my own" stays inside the one-desktop model instead of being a second mode with its own rules.

darwinConfigurations.lovelace = haus.mkHaus {
  username = "ada";
  hostname = "lovelace";
  host = ./hosts/lovelace;
  desktop = haus.desktops.blank;
};

The whole file, upstream, is this:

{
  haus = { };
}

Everything else is the room catalogue's own neutral defaults doing the work.

What you get

The foundation, and only that:

the haus CLI: rebuild, plan, diff, set, rollback, update;
the app roster: the one list that drives what's installed and from where, ready for entries you add;
the Nix and rebuild plumbing: pinned inputs, generations, garbage collection;
haus's safe macOS defaults: the conservative ones the foundation writes on every machine, and nearly all of them soft, so your host outranks them with a plain assignment. (Two menu-bar keys are not, and say so.)

What you don't

No optional room is on: no bar, no tiling, no launcher, no shelf, no Focus switch, no coding agents, no developer toolbelt, no Touch ID for sudo. No global hotkey is claimed: Caps Lock stays Caps Lock and ⌘Space stays Spotlight's. The wallpaper is left alone, the tour doesn't run, and no theme files are written into apps you already had.

That last one is the point of Blank rather than a stripped hacker: nothing here reaches outside haus and changes something you didn't ask for.

Adding a room

Every room is one switch in your host file at ~/.config/nix/hosts/<hostname>/default.nix:

haus.sill.enable = true;      # the bar
haus.pounce.enable = true;    # the launcher
haus.keys.palette = "cmd-space";

haus rebuild

A room enabled is a room that works: each one ships a neutral, useful configuration, so you get a drawn bar and a working launcher without tuning anything. Tune it afterwards from that room's page, or leave it.

Rooms don't switch each other on

Turning on the Bar doesn't bring the launcher, and turning on Development doesn't bring coding agents. Where two rooms cooperate (agent pills on the bar, agent commands in the launcher), the extra appears only when both are on, and its absence never disables the room that offered it.

Growing out of blank

If you find yourself turning on most of the catalogue, you are describing a desktop that already exists. Try selecting one and overriding the two or three things you disagree with. If what you have is genuinely yours, and you want it on a second Mac or in someone else's hands, that's a desktop of your own.

Every option

The full surface, grouped by room, with the type and default of every switch you can flip.

Customize a desktop

Finding the knob you want, turning rooms off, and beating a default haus set.