diff --git a/nix/home-manager/profiles/common.nix b/nix/home-manager/profiles/common.nix
index 246dc2e..20a17e3 100644
--- a/nix/home-manager/profiles/common.nix
+++ b/nix/home-manager/profiles/common.nix
@@ -21,7 +21,8 @@
     layout = "us";
     variant = "altgr-intl";
     options = [
-      "nodeadkeys"
+      # nodeadkeys doesn't make sense with us layout: see https://man.archlinux.org/man/xkeyboard-config.7 for valid options
+      # "nodeadkeys"
       # "caps:swapescape"
     ];
   };
diff --git a/nix/home-manager/profiles/sway-desktop.nix b/nix/home-manager/profiles/sway-desktop.nix
index c5d0c83..d4fe5c0 100644
--- a/nix/home-manager/profiles/sway-desktop.nix
+++ b/nix/home-manager/profiles/sway-desktop.nix
@@ -85,6 +85,7 @@ in {
         "type:keyboard" = {
           xkb_layout = config.home.keyboard.layout;
           xkb_variant = config.home.keyboard.variant;
+        } // lib.attrsets.optionalAttrs (builtins.length (config.home.keyboard.options or []) > 0) {
           xkb_options = builtins.concatStringsSep "," config.home.keyboard.options;
         };