This is why I'm looking into using Guix / Nix for when my home server dies and I need a replacement. Declarative setups make too much sense. The only form of history I have of the weird shit I did with a Mac mini running debian + a LaCiE HDD hub is my .bash_history file, which a chatbot was able to figure out for me.

My modern server infrastructure is managed in this style. Not declarative, but the manner of management is an idempotent bash script (terraform being the “heavyweight” version of this that I discarded).