Converting one node to NixOS
⚠ This is not a live capture: it is a condensed reconstruction, edited afterwards from the real session transcript. The prompts and the stop messages are the ones from the actual session; the timing is compressed and the long waits are cut. Hostnames sanitized.
One of the nine machines converted the same day — a virtual one.
nixos-anywhere does everything over SSH: it uploads an installer, kexecs
into it, partitions, installs, and the machine comes back exactly as git
describes it. No screen plugged in, no USB stick.
In practice it stalls. Twice over here: Secure Boot blocking the kexec,
then an initrd that refuses to unpack for lack of memory.
Claude Code — the Fable 5 and Opus 5 models — drove it. My part: validate, ask questions, and unblock what an agent isn’t allowed to do on its own.