Couch-Client is an extremely thorough well tested and simple gem to use for complete access to couch-db. Git Repo

Some of its great features are… - rake tasks to allow for syncing of designs (they are stored procedures in couch-land) so you can actually version control designs. You version your designs and rake tasks handle keeping them up to date - document builder data creation - use lucene style syntax for searching - Couch instance administration (compacting of data, getting statistics etc)