The Rails Configuration File (~/.railsrc)

Did you know that Rails has a ~/.railsrc file?

Similar to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file, you can use this file to configure your Rails applications.

This is especially useful if you find yourself repeatedly typing --skip or --no-skip commands and installing specific gems every time you create a new Rails application.

Since I made a switch to Rails from .NET last year, I must have created at least 20-30 projects for either learning, experiments, or client work. I have a text file that documents all the gems I want to install for a fresh Rails app. Every time I create a new project, I go through the file to install all the gems I want for my project.

With the ~/.railsrc file, I don't need to do that. Rails will do it for me. Here's how you do this.

First, create the .railsrc file in your home directory.

touch ~/.railsrc

Add whatever options you want in this file. For example,

--database=mysql--skip-active-job--skip-spring--skip-javascript--template=~/dotfiles/rails_template.rb

To see all the available options, type rails in a non-rails directory.

  rails railsUsage:  rails new APP_PATH [options]Options:      [--skip-namespace], [--no-skip-namespace]              # Skip namespace (affects only isolated engines)      [--skip-collision-check], [--no-skip-collision-check]  # Skip collision check  -r, [--ruby=PATH]                                          # Path to the Ruby binary of your choice                                                             # Default: /Users/akshay/.rbenv/versions/3.1.0/bin/ruby  -m, [--template=TEMPLATE]                                  # Path to some application template (can be a filesystem path or URL)  -d, [--database=DATABASE]                                  # Preconfigure for selected database   ...

To pre-configure the gems you'd like to install, create a template.rb file. Here's mine:

gem_group :development, :test do  gem 'dotenv-rails'  gem 'factory_bot_rails'endgem_group :development do  gem 'better_errors'  gem 'binding_of_caller'  gem 'annotate'end

Now add the path to the template at the end of your ~/.railsrc file.

--template=~/software/rails/template.rb

That's it. The next time you run rails new app, Rails will use the configuration file along with the Gemfile template to create your application just like you want.

Pretty cool, right?