Rails Setup Flow

Rails Setup Flow — Complete Project Setup Workflow

Orchestrates the full Rails project setup from context gathering through CI/CD configuration.

When to Use

• Starting a new Rails project (rails new or existing repo clone)
• Setting up development environment for existing project
• Configuring CI/CD pipeline
• Docker/environment setup

Workflow Phases

Phase 1: Context & Onboarding

Load project context first:

1. skills/context/rails-context-engineering — Understand existing codebase structure
2. skills/context/rails-project-onboarding — Complete dev environment setup

Inline fallback (if sub-skills are unavailable):

# Verify Ruby version matches .ruby-version
ruby -v
# Install dependencies
bundle install
# Check database connectivity
rails db:create db:migrate
# Confirm test runner is operational
bundle exec rspec --dry-run
# Load env vars (copy example if missing)
cp .env.example .env 2>/dev/null || true

HARD GATE — Environment Check:

• Ruby version correct (check .ruby-version)
• Bundler installed and working
• Database connection successful
• All env vars loaded (check config/credentials.yml.enc or .env)

If environment check FAILS: Fix the failing item above before proceeding to Phase 2.

Phase 2: CI/CD Configuration

Proceed only after environment check passes.

1. CI/CD Proposal Checkpoint — Decide on pipeline approach:

   • GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or other platform?
   • Staging vs production environments?
   • Deployment strategy (basic, blue-green, canary)?

2. Configure CI pipeline (linting, testing, security, migrations):

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: .ruby-version
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec rails db:create db:migrate
      - run: bundle exec rspec
      - run: bundle exec rubocop
      - run: bundle exec brakeman --no-pager
      - run: bundle exec bundle-audit check --update

3. Configure CD pipeline (staging + production deployment gates):

# .github/workflows/cd.yml
name: CD
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
jobs:
  deploy-staging:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: staging
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: .ruby-version
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec rails db:migrate
        env:
          RAILS_ENV: staging
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.STAGING_DATABASE_URL }}
      - run: echo "Deploy to staging here (e.g. Heroku, Fly.io, Kamal)"
  deploy-production:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: deploy-staging
    environment: production   # Requires manual approval gate in GitHub
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1
        with:
          ruby-version: .ruby-version
          bundler-cache: true
      - run: bundle exec rails db:migrate
        env:
          RAILS_ENV: production
          DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.PRODUCTION_DATABASE_URL }}
      - run: echo "Deploy to production here"
      # Rollback: re-run previous deployment job or use platform CLI

Phase 3: Environment Validation

Verify everything works end-to-end:

# Local development
bundle install
rails db:create db:migrate
rails server  # Should start without errors
bundle exec rspec  # Should run (even if 0 tests)

# CI simulation (if possible locally)
act push  # GitHub Actions local runner (optional)

Output Style

Setup Checklist: Marked file SETUP_CHECKLIST.md with:

• Ruby installed
• Bundler working
• Database created
• Tests passing
• CI configured
• Secrets configured

Integration

From AGENTS.md: This is the setup workflow. For development, chain to rails-tdd-loop.