I think the systemd units in /run are indeed ephemeral, and indicate units that are active. If they have permanent counterparts (some units, like transient timer units, don't have them), you'll find them under /etc/systemd or /lib/systemd for system units and ~/.local/share/systemd or ~/.config/systemd for user units.
> But I honestly don't see why non-ephemeral per user data shouldn't be put into /home
I think I agree— as long as the conventions are clear, I think it's reasonable to have some hidden dirs under $HOME set aside for configuration and cache and so on.
Maybe there's value in exposing a single directory as the root of a sandbox for user files, so users have to go farther out of their way to screw things up, especially depending on your audience. Maybe a decade from now Linux desktops will have something like this, because most apps will run sandboxed in Flatpak, unable to write to the root of $HOME. (Idrk how that's organized, though— maybe apps are just allowed to edit "their" dotfiles without modifying their location.)
But I'm not sure that obscuring configuration data's place in the filesystem in that way is really desirable or necessary. I doubt most users inspect or think about hidden directories on Unix-likes unless they're looking for them anyway.
> But I honestly don't see why non-ephemeral per user data shouldn't be put into /home
I think I agree— as long as the conventions are clear, I think it's reasonable to have some hidden dirs under $HOME set aside for configuration and cache and so on.
Maybe there's value in exposing a single directory as the root of a sandbox for user files, so users have to go farther out of their way to screw things up, especially depending on your audience. Maybe a decade from now Linux desktops will have something like this, because most apps will run sandboxed in Flatpak, unable to write to the root of $HOME. (Idrk how that's organized, though— maybe apps are just allowed to edit "their" dotfiles without modifying their location.)
But I'm not sure that obscuring configuration data's place in the filesystem in that way is really desirable or necessary. I doubt most users inspect or think about hidden directories on Unix-likes unless they're looking for them anyway.