ruby-development

name	ruby-development
description	Covers Ruby and Rails 8+ development: Hotwire, Solid Queue, Minitest, and Rails conventions. Use when building Rails applications, writing Ruby code, or following Rails patterns. Follows DHH/37signals conventions. Not for database schema design (use database-design) or frontend outside Hotwire (use typescript-development).

Ruby Development

The DHH/37signals way: convention over configuration, programmer happiness, and elegant simplicity.

Contents

• Critical Rules
• Verification
• Quick Reference
• Topics
• Stack Overview

Critical Rules

Always

• Follow Ruby/Rails naming conventions exactly
• Use generators (bin/rails g) for scaffolding
• Write tests first (TDD with Minitest)
• Keep controllers thin (under 10 lines per action)
• Return proper HTTP status codes
• Use strong parameters for all user input
• Index foreign keys in migrations

Never

• Fight conventions without excellent reason
• Put business logic in controllers or views
• Skip model validations
• Use render after successful mutations (use redirect_to)
• Store secrets in code (use credentials:edit)
• Write custom CSS when Tailwind utilities exist
• Reach for microservices before the monolith fails

Verification

After Editing Rails Files

Migration Safety:

• For migration files (db/migrate/*.rb), check for:
  • remove_column without safety checks (use strong_migrations gem)
  • rename_column or rename_table (consider add+copy+remove pattern)
  • NOT NULL constraints without default on existing tables
  • add_index without algorithm: :concurrently for large tables
  • change_column (may lock table and lose data)
• Deep validation (if time permits):
  • Test forward migration: rails db:migrate:up VERSION={version}
  • Test rollback: rails db:migrate:down VERSION={version}

Testing:

• If using Minitest: bin/rails test {test_file}
• If using RSpec: bundle exec rspec {spec_file}
• Run related tests by module: bin/rails test test/models/ or bundle exec rspec spec/models/

Linting:

• If standardrb is available: standardrb {files} or standardrb --fix {files}
• If rubocop is available: rubocop {files} or rubocop -a {files}

Security Scanning:

• If brakeman is available: bundle exec brakeman --quiet --format text
• Review high/medium confidence warnings

Before Committing

• Run StandardRB or RuboCop on changed files
• Run migration safety checks for new migrations
• Run tests for modified components
• Run Brakeman scan if reviewing or doing thorough validation
• Check CHANGELOG.md format if it exists

Quick Reference

Rails 8 (Default)

Component	Default	Alternative
Database	SQLite (dev/prod)	PostgreSQL
Background Jobs	Solid Queue	Sidekiq
Caching	Solid Cache	Redis
WebSockets	Solid Cable	Redis
Assets	Propshaft + Import Maps	esbuild
CSS	Tailwind (standalone)	Bootstrap
Deployment	Kamal	Capistrano

Beyond Rails

Use Case	Tool
Microservices	Sinatra, Roda
API-only	Grape
Full-stack alternative	Hanami
CLI tools	Thor, TTY
Gem development	Bundler

Topics

Topic	Reference	Use When
Core	core.md	Writing idiomatic Ruby, organizing Rails files
Models	models.md	Creating models, validations, associations, migrations
Controllers	controllers.md	Building RESTful actions, strong params, filters
Views	views.md	Creating templates, partials, layouts, helpers
Hotwire	hotwire.md	Adding Turbo Drive/Frames/Streams, Stimulus
API	api.md	Building JSON APIs, versioning, authentication
Jobs	jobs.md	Setting up Solid Queue, Active Job, recurring jobs
Security	security.md	Implementing authentication, authorization, CSRF
Testing	testing.md	Writing Minitest, fixtures, system tests
Performance	performance.md	Fixing N+1 queries, caching, indexing
Deployment	deployment.md	Deploying with Kamal, Docker, zero-downtime
Styling	styling.md	Setting up Tailwind CSS, responsive design