homelab-agents/home-apps-session-summary.md

Session Summary - home-apps

Date: 2026-04-12 Hostname: home-apps Repository: homelab-agents (shared)

Session Overview

Debugging and fixing Emacs configuration to work correctly on the Linux VM accessed via terminal from an iPad. Config is authored on a Mac and synced to the VM via Syncthing.

Accomplishments

Emacs Init Error Fixed (flashcard-config.el)

• Identified void-variable flash-card-mode-map error on startup
• Root cause: mismatched parenthesis caused (define-key flash-card-mode-map ...) to fall outside the use-package block and execute before the package loaded
• Fixed by moving the closing ) to after the second define-key

Cross-Platform Load Paths Fixed

• flashcard-config.el and task-config.el both referenced ~/config/sam_emacs_packages/ which does not exist on this VM (packages live at ~/sam_emacs_packages/)
• Applied the conditional darwin/Linux pattern:

  (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name
                           (if (eq system-type 'darwin)
                               "~/config/sam_emacs_packages/<pkg>"
                             "~/sam_emacs_packages/<pkg>")))
  

secrets.el Symlink Added

• init.el loads secrets.el via user-emacs-directory but no symlink existed
• Added: ~/.emacs.d/secrets.el → ~/emacs_config/secrets.el

ELPA Package Visibility Fixed (ob-mermaid)

• On Mac, ~/.emacs.d symlinks to ~/config/emacs_config so packages install into ~/emacs_config/elpa/. On the VM, ~/.emacs.d/elpa/ is a separate real directory.
• Fixed by adding ~/emacs_config/elpa/ to package-directory-list in package-setup.el before (package-initialize), Linux-only

mermaid-mode Added

• Added mermaid-mode alongside existing ob-mermaid in org-base.el
• Guarded by same (when my/mmdc-path ...) check — only loads if mmdc is available
• Reuses my/mmdc-path variable for cross-platform CLI path

Puppeteer Sandbox Fix (VM only)

• mmdc uses headless Chromium which requires sandboxing — blocked on this Linux VM
• Created ~/.config/mermaid/puppeteer-config.json with {"args": ["--no-sandbox"]}
• org-base.el detects this file at load time and sets ob-mermaid-puppeteer-config and mermaid-flags accordingly; Mac is unaffected (file doesn't exist there)

Notion Credentials Investigated

• "Notion Task DBID not set" error traced to credentials path resolution
• notion-config.el resolves path relative to parent of user-emacs-directory (following symlinks): Mac → ~/config/credentials/, VM → ~/credentials/
• File confirmed present at ~/credentials/notion-credentials.env — already synced

.netrc Set Up for Gitea

• Bootstrap script at https://gitea.pdmarf.co.uk required authentication
• Created ~/.netrc with API token for both the public domain and internal IP (100.120.125.113) — git operations inside the bootstrap use the internal address
• Documented in ~/netrc-explainer.org

Key Decisions

• Conditional load paths rather than VM-only overrides — keeps one config file working on both platforms
• package-directory-list rather than symlinking elpa directories — safer, non-destructive
• Puppeteer config file as feature flag — presence of the file enables the workaround, absence is safe
• .netrc for Gitea auth — token stored once, not embedded in scripts or history

Files Modified

File	Change
my-packages/flashcard-config.el	Fixed paren bug; conditional load path
my-packages/task-config.el	Conditional load path
my-packages/package-setup.el	Added ~/emacs_config/elpa to package-directory-list on Linux
my-packages/org-base.el	Added mermaid-mode; Puppeteer config detection
~/.emacs.d/secrets.el	New symlink → ~/emacs_config/secrets.el
~/.config/mermaid/puppeteer-config.json	New file, VM only
~/.netrc	New file, Gitea credentials
~/netrc-explainer.org	New documentation file

Next Steps

• Restart Emacs on Mac to let :ensure t install mermaid-mode from MELPA
• Test mermaid-compile and Babel #+begin_src mermaid blocks on the iPad
• Verify Notion Tasks opens cleanly after credentials fix