diff --git a/doom.nix b/doom.nix
index b7112bf..cd63ebe 100644
--- a/doom.nix
+++ b/doom.nix
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
   makeBinaryWrapper,
 }:
 let
-  inherit (lib) optionalAttrs optionalString pathExists;
+  inherit (lib) optionalAttrs optionalString;
 
   # Step 1: determine which Emacs packages to pull in.
   #
@@ -225,19 +225,10 @@ let
   emacsWithPackages = doomEmacsPackages.emacsWithPackages (epkgs: (map (p: epkgs.${p}) (builtins.attrNames doomPackageSet)));
 
   # Step 4: build a final DOOMDIR with packages.el from step 1.
-
-  finalInitFile = let
-    doomInitFile = "${doomDir}/init.el";
-  in
-    if pathExists doomInitFile
-    then concatText "doom-init" [ ./pre-init.el doomInitFile ]
-    else ./pre-init.el;
-
+  finalInitFile = concatText "doom-init" [ ./pre-init.el "${doomDir}/init.el" ];
   finalDoomDir = runCommand "doom-dir" {} ''
     mkdir $out
-    if [[ -n "$(ls -A1 ${doomDir})" ]]; then
-      ln -s ${doomDir}/* $out/
-    fi
+    ln -s ${doomDir}/* $out/
     # yasnippet logs an error at startup if snippets/ does not exist.
     if ! [[ -e $out/snippets ]]; then
       mkdir $out/snippets
diff --git a/example/init.el b/doomdirs/example/init.el
similarity index 100%
rename from example/init.el
rename to doomdirs/example/init.el
diff --git a/example/packages.el b/doomdirs/example/packages.el
similarity index 100%
rename from example/packages.el
rename to doomdirs/example/packages.el
diff --git a/doomdirs/minimal/init.el b/doomdirs/minimal/init.el
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54d163c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doomdirs/minimal/init.el
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+;; Doom doesn't like a completely empty doom! block.
+(doom! :config default)
diff --git a/flake.nix b/flake.nix
index 528b7c9..b2d085b 100644
--- a/flake.nix
+++ b/flake.nix
@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@
           # Current Doom + NixOS 23.11 requires emacs-overlay: Doom pins
           # emacs-fish-completion, which moved from gitlab to github recently
           # enough stable nixpkgs pulls it from the wrong source.
-          doom-minimal = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { doomDir = pkgs.emptyDirectory; });
-          doom-full = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { full = true; doomDir = pkgs.emptyDirectory; });
-          doom-example = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { doomDir = ./example; });
+          doom-minimal = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { doomDir = ./doomdirs/minimal; });
+          doom-full = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { full = true; doomDir = ./doomdirs/minimal; });
+          doom-example = pkgsWithEmacsOverlay.callPackage ./doom.nix (common // { doomDir = ./doomdirs/example; });
         });
       overlays.default = final: prev:
         let