The detection file was written before the machine ran NixOS, as an educated
guess at what a Dell XPS 13 9380 needs, and said so. Its contents now come
from nixos-generate-config on the running machine.
The guess was wider than the measurement rather than narrower: it named
thunderbolt, usb_storage and sd_mod, none of which the scan reports, and
omitted rtsx_pci_sdmmc. Nothing needed to reach the root device was missing.
Filesystem, swap, LUKS and microcode declarations from the scan are dropped.
The disk layout derives the first three and the hardware profile supplies the
last, so carrying them here would duplicate definitions that are produced on
every evaluation.
Key sudo's credential cache per user rather than per terminal, holding it
for 60 minutes. An authentication made in the operator's own terminal then
covers commands issued by processes holding no terminal of their own, which
previously failed with a bare non-zero exit and no output.
No command is made passwordless. The password remains required; only the
cache holding it is shared, and any process running as the primary user can
spend that credential until it lapses.
A PreToolUse hook refuses a privileged command while the cache is cold,
naming the command that warms it, so the condition announces itself rather
than presenting as a stall. Both states were exercised against the running
system.
The reimage is done and verified on hardware: the boot partition is 2 GiB
and reports it, the hardware profile's kernel parameter and module blacklist
are live, and the encrypted root unlocks to a console login.
The install procedure ran without divergence, which is the reproducibility
evidence the task was after.
The reimage also wiped the hand-written git identity, so the gotcha
describing it is updated to record the failure it now provokes.
