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Modern Rails Manifesto

Modern Rails Manifesto
Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
Authors
  • avatar
    Name
    Dusan Pantelic
    Twitter
  • Only Rails built-in functionalities and sub-frameworks should be used:
    • It is strictly forbidden to use any gem, library or framework that replicates functionality already provided by Rails
  • No RSpec or its alternatives: minitest only
  • No microservices: just a big monolith app
  • No design patterns are allowed(beside what’s already there)
    • No view components nor trailblazer
    • No command or operation objects
    • No presentation objects. Never try to test any of these in isolation. Only helper tests are allowed
  • No mongoDB: PostgreSQL only
  • Minimal use of 3rd party gems:
    • You have to explicitly ask your teammates, and be allowed to add a 3rd party gem. This has to be reviewed and vetted unless the gem is already on a whitelist. You would have to answer these questions first:
      • Is the gem well maintained? When was the last commit?
      • If they stop maintaining it, are we allowed to fork it ourselves and keep it running?
      • Would it be simple to maintain it ourselves in case they abandon it?
      • Does it have a major impact on our app? Will the app stop working without it?
  • Minimum use of 3rd party APIs and services
    • The other way around is true as well. You should not build Rails API only backends
  • Minimum configuration required to run the app in local:
    • Limited set of local ENV variables required.
    • You can introduce a new ENV variable only when absolutely necessary.
    • If an ENV is required, you are expecting to be there that is not present during runtime, you have to raise an exception.
    • The ENV should hold secrets only. Use Rails encrypted credentials if possible:
    • Anything non-secret, that can be safely committed and submitted to repo, should be hardcoded as a CONST at the beginning of a file.
    • Anything environment dependent should go to the appropriate environment config file: test.rb, development.rb… or in an initializer
  • It should be enough to start the app in development by simply typing rails s
    • No other services should be required to run the app locally
    • Docker use for development is strictly forbidden
    • No virtual machines in local, and no windows subsystem for Linux
    • Only mac and Ubuntu local environments should be allowed
  • No React or vue.js
    • All client side JS logic has to go to Stimulus controllers
    • jQuery CAN be used
    • Turbo and Hotwire are a must for any advanced user interactions
      • But be careful with streams, or anything that goes over sockets
  • No logic in models. Models can have:
    • relationships defined
    • validations
    • finders and scopes
    • Some very basic simple methods beyond that
    • Most of the logic should go to controllers
    • Specifically, no model lifecycle callbacks or observers are ever allowed to be used
    • If multiple objects are created at once, ask yourself:
      • Should this be wrapped inside a transaction?
      • Should there be an explicit lock?
  • Do not overthink DB indexing
  • Testing before code whenever you can
    • Be sure to never test Rails itself or gems
    • System tests are a must(capybara and chrome)
    • Followed by controller test
    • It is allowed to use assigns in controller tests(use this gem: )
    • Model tests less often
      • Only when absolutely needed, since we do not have much logic there. We do not want to be testing ActiveRecord!
    • Fixtures are OK to be used.
    • No factories are allowed
  • Devise is allowed
    • If you are rolling out your own solution makes sure to use has_secure_password and add bcrypt gem
  • Attach files using ActiveStorage only
  • Simple branching strategy
    • Branch directly out of the main branch, merge back to the main branch. Deploy immediately
    • No releases, or complicated branching strategies. It is all constantly and continuously deployed
  • For jobs use ActiveJob only and its default backends in development and testing
  • In development no background job queue is allowed to be run, expect simple rails s
  • No Procfile nor foreman should be allowed in development
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