How settings are applied

When you rebuild, nix-plist-manager writes each setting you declared the way System Settings does, then makes it take effect. Settings you don’t declare are left alone: you can adopt it one option at a time.

Taking effect

• Most settings apply right away. The processes that read them are restarted once, at the end: the Dock, Finder, Control Center, SystemUIServer. Each option says what it restarts.
• Some go through macOS’s own tools. Appearance, True Tone and Night Shift, input sources and keyboard shortcuts are applied live through the same APIs System Settings uses; the firewall through socketfilterfw, power through pmset, sharing through launchctl.
• A few only apply after logging out. Key repeat, and the trackpad’s gestures and clicking, are read by the input drivers at login. Their pages say After logging out.

"unset"

Every option also accepts "unset": it removes what was written, so macOS goes back to its default. Leaving an option out (null) means don’t manage it, which leaves whatever is there.

Settings that depend on each other

Some settings only mean something together. The Dock’s magnification size needs magnification on, and Three Finger Drag takes the three-finger swipes. When two of your declarations contradict each other, the rebuild fails and says why. When the other setting isn’t declared, you get a warning instead, which programs.nix-plist-manager.ignoreWarnings can silence.

Note

Each option shows where macOS keeps it and the exact commands a rebuild runs for it, under Where it’s stored and what runs.