My home manager config has a systemd user unit defined in it that runs on login that does a lot of the “busy-work” of maintaining my NixOS install. You can adapt this to your needs, but for me [this top script](https://gitlab.com/yramagicman/stow-dotfiles/-/blob/master/home.nix?ref\_type=heads#L7) in my home.nix and the [corresponding systemd unit](https://gitlab.com/yramagicman/stow-dotfiles/-/blob/master/home.nix?ref\_type=heads#L198) and [timer](https://gitlab.com/yramagicman/stow-dotfiles/-/blob/master/home.nix?ref\_type=heads#L256) do everything silently in the background. I’ve never had issues with this approach.

Caveat: There are a few things in that section of my home config that are pretty specific to me. Read carefully and edit as needed.

The nice thing about nix and home-manager is that it works everywhere, so if you want to yank that section of my configs for your own use it should just work.

Fantastic! Thanks! I really wasn’t expecting this, but it’s why I love the (good parts of the) FOSS community.

This was almost my reply lolz. Is it possible for opposing opinions to be correct?

It’s been a minute since I’ve used Macos, but if memory serves correctly, Macos doesn’t send the key code corresponding to meta when you hit the option key, so that’s probably part of the challenge. I know iTerm2 had an option to fix that when I was using Macos, but I’m not sure if that’s still true.

Some quick research reveals this article on the Emacs Wiki with some hints. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MetaKeyProblems