mikeabney / rails-docker-bootstrap

Quick bootstrap setup for a new Rails project using Docker and Compose

Rails Docker Bootstrap

Spin up a basic Rails app with the included Docker setup and script. This allows for creating a new app without installing Ruby or Rails separately on the local host. That means no fiddling with rvm, rbenv, asdf or whatever else. An article that goes into just a bit of detail around the whys and hows of this coming into existence is available here: Bootstrap Rails Development with Docker

Usage

The dev script is used to run a set of commands that will auto-generate most of what is needed to get a Rails app off the ground. The available commands are:

• new creates a default Gemfile that pulls the latest Rails version and runs rails new. This will take a while as it pulls all the needed dependencies, including gems, node packages, etc. It will not run if there is already a Gemfile in place.
• setup runs Rails setup to initialize databases for dev and test, once configured (see below).
• bash to get a prompt for running bundle install, irb, the Rails console, etc.
• test set to run rspec tests once set up (see below).
• up which is a little better than simple docker-compose up because it cleans up the app container after it's done.
• down basically an alias for docker-compose down.
• build builds or rebuilds the image. Only needed if ther are changes to Dockerfile.dev or docker-compose.yml.

Step by step

1. Download (probably not clone or fork, but your choice) this repo to a directory named for the app you are building.
2. Review what the script and Docker files do. (Don't trust random scripts on the internet, kids!)
3. Run ./dev new and go get some tea, take a bio break, or anything to waste a few minutes while images are build, the gems and node packages are downloaded, etc.
4. Edit the database.yml appropriately (look at the docker-compose.yml for creds, hostname, etc). Also, consider doing better with password hygiene if you ever push the actual Rails app somewhere public.
5. Run ./dev setup.
6. Test out the app by running ./dev up and going to localhost:3000.

Notes

The script and compose file are set to spin up a PostgreSQL database. This is what I use most often. It should be relatively simple to change as you like.

If you want the ./dev test command to work, you'll need to set up RSpec in the usual ways.