ruby-rails_skill

Overview

This skill provides practical guidance and patterns for building Ruby on Rails 8 applications using Ruby 3.2. It focuses on backend concerns: ActiveRecord models, controllers, migrations, background jobs, serializers, service objects, and RSpec testing. Use it to enforce Rails conventions, improve performance, and follow a test-and-lint workflow that includes running RSpec before RuboCop.

How this skill works

The skill inspects Rails-specific code patterns such as controllers, models, migrations, jobs, concerns, serializers, and configuration files. It recommends idiomatic implementations (thin controllers, service objects, serializers), highlights common pitfalls (N+1 queries, callback hell), and prescribes testing and linting steps to ensure quality. It also suggests Rails 8 features like Solid Queue/Cache/Cable and Propshaft where relevant.

When to use it

• When building or refactoring Rails 8 APIs or server-rendered apps using Ruby 3.2
• When writing ActiveRecord models, database migrations, or complex queries
• When extracting business logic into service objects or background jobs
• When creating serializers and API response formats for JSON endpoints
• When writing RSpec tests and enforcing RuboCop rules before committing

Best practices

• Keep methods short (prefer < 10 lines) and controllers thin; push logic to services or models
• Use change in migrations when reversible; add indexes and set DB-level defaults/null constraints
• Eager-load associations to avoid N+1 queries and add indexes for frequently queried columns
• Run the test suite first (RSpec) and then run RuboCop; fix offenses before committing
• Use strong parameters, database validations, and transactions for multi-step operations

Example use cases

• Implementing a RESTful OrdersController that delegates creation to a service object
• Writing a migration that adds a status column with default and index
• Creating an OrderSerializer to standardize JSON payloads for an API
• Moving a complex callback workflow into an Orders::CreateService with RSpec coverage
• Configuring Solid Queue for background job processing and writing job specs