The Ruby and Rails community linklog
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Today
Images, Volumes, and Containers: Docker Explained in Plain English
Very often I see developers completely give up on learning Docker because of the vocabulary. You… [more inside]
DB GUI 0.4.0 Remember SQL Command History
DB GUI is a Database querying desktop app built in Ruby. It supports PostgreSQL to start. Version 0.4.0 added support for remembering SQL command history. I needed that feature at my job, so I added it very quickly, thanks to the awesomeness of Ruby! https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/05/db-gui-040-remember-sql-command-history.html
Deploying Prebuilt Docker Images with Kamal
A small but useful realization from recent client work: Kamal isn’t only for applications you build yourself. [more inside]
Create and deploy a Rails app in under 5 minutes with Ace Template
Ace Template is a Rails 8+ application template that allows you to go from rails new to deployed in under 5 minutes. No ops experience needed — see screencasts for Kamal, Fly.io, and Heroku.
Ruby Native is here (plus discount code)
Ship your Rails app to the App Store without opening Xcode. $100 off through May 18. [more inside]
Relay: an environment for LLM hackers
Relay is a self-hostable LLM environment with support for OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, Anthropic, xAI and zAI out of the box. It is distributed as a rubygem, and takes only two minutes to setup. It can be extended with tools from MCP servers, or your own ~/.relay/tools directory.
The Execution Boundary in Rails
What changes when Rails work leaves the request-response path and starts running later, elsewhere, or under a different failure model? [more inside]
Ten Years of Frontend
In this episode, we look at where we were years ago and the journey where we have landed today. Over the past 10 years, much has changed with our approach to client interactions and in the episode we explore my favorite and current approach. This episode marks a significant milestone in my journey, as I’ve consistently released one episode every week for the past decade! https://www.driftingruby.com/episodes/ten-years-of-frontend
How Rails Dispatches a Request to a Controller
A clear explanation of what happens after routing chooses an endpoint: controller resolution, params setup, callback execution, and response handling. [more inside]
Your Rails app can be perfectly secure…
Your Rails app can be perfectly secure… and still get rooted in seconds. [more inside]
Ruby Memes 2026-05-03: The Popularist
Ruby Memes 2026-05-03: The Popularist https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/05/ruby-memes-2026-05-03-popularist.html
Experiment: DSL for backend systems (APIs/models/workflows) → compiled services
I’ve been experimenting with a spec-first approach to backend development and was curious how something like this would fit into a Rails workflow. [more inside]
How to Build a Desktop App with Rails 8 and Electron
From Web to Desktop: Wrapping a Rails Hotwire App in Electron Very often I find myself… [more inside]
High ROI Testing: The 3 Secrets Every Solo Rails Dev Needs
Very often I see solo developers fall into one of two traps. Trap number one: They read a book on… [more inside]
llm_cost_tracker 0.7.2: Rails-native LLM cost tracking, now more production-ready
Released llm_cost_tracker v0.7.2 [more inside]
Rails-based SSG: Perron (1.0.0 released)
Perron is an OSS Rails-based static site generator I released 9 months ago and now hit 1.0.0. Read the announcement post https://railsdesigner.com/perron-1-0/, the docs https://perron.railsdesigner.com/docs/ and check out the repo https://github.com/Rails-Designer/perron ⭐
The Importmap Guide to Shadcn: Beautiful UI with Zero Build Step
How to Use Shadcn UI in Rails 8 (Without React or Webpack) If you have looked at frontend… [more inside]
Migflow: migration timeline, schema diffs and audit warnings for Rails
Migflow is a mountable Rails engine that adds a dashboard at /migflow with a visual timeline of all migrations, schema diffs between any two versions, an ERD graph, and audit warnings (missing indexes, unsafe null constraints, etc.). Also ships a CLI report for CI pipelines. Supports Rails 7+, Ruby 3.2+, and API-only apps. [more inside]
Ruby Gem Discovery: HighLine
I recently stumbled upon a Ruby gem called HighLine that simplifies basic command line input/output via an ask method and supports validation, conversion, and multi-choices.
https://andymaleh.blogspot.com/2026/04/ruby-gem-discovery-highline.html
The Secret to Side-by-Side Gem Development in Rails
Stop Pushing to GitHub: How to Test Ruby Gems Locally Very often I find myself writing a… [more inside]
Stub responses to test code that interacts with RubyLLM
If you are using RubyLLM, but struggling to test code that interacts with an LLM, check out the new gem RubyLLM::Test. It makes it easy to stub responses as well as validate request parameters.