A manual setup for a typical rails 4.x. app with bootstrap layout, devise authentication, rspec testing framework with capybara and git version control.

rails-boilerplate.md

Setup a new project and database.

Create a new rails app named app_name without Test::Unit and with mysql database:

rails new app_name -T -d mysql

or an app without Test::Unit and with postgresql database:

rails new app_name -T -d postgresql

or without Test::Unit and with the default sqlite:

rails new app_name -T

####Database credentials from environment variables. If you are using mysql or postgres, username and password must be filled in config/database.yml. Instead of constants, use environment variables:

username: <%= ENV["DEVELOPMENT_DATABASE_USERNAME"] %>
password: <%= ENV["DEVELOPMENT_DATABASE_PASSWORD"] %>

Add dotenv in gemfile:

group :development, :test do
  gem 'dotenv-rails'
end

And install it:

bundle install

Create a new file in root .env (which we will exclude from version control) and export the environment variables:

export DEVELOPMENT_DATABASE_USERNAME=your_username
export DEVELOPMENT_DATABASE_PASSWORD=your_password

Create and migrate the database:

rake db:create
rake db:migrate

Rspec testing framework

Add to the gemfile (in development and test groups):

group :development, :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails'
end

group :test do
  gem "faker"
  gem "capybara"
  gem "database_cleaner"
  gem "launchy"
  gem "selenium-webdriver"
end

Download and install by running:

bundle install

Initialize the spec/ directory (where specs will reside) with:

rails generate rspec:install

Change the rspec format to doxumentation by adding the following line in .rspec file:

--format documentation

Change some testing options and use factory-girl instead of fixtures by adding the following in config/application.rb (inside Application class):

config.generators do |g|
  g.test_framework :rspec,
    fixtures: true,
    view_specs: false,
    helper_specs: false,
    routing_specs: false,
    controller_specs: true,
    request_specs: false
  g.fixture_replacement :factory_girl, dir: "spec/factories"
end

Now all generators should be using rspec instead of test unit.

Generate something simple such as:

rails g controller hello index

Change default site root in config/routes.rb by adding:

root to: 'hello#index'

Bootstrap Theme

Install bootstrap 3.2 and rails_layout(for applying a default bootstrap theme to our site) installation:

Add these gems to gemfile:

gem 'bootstrap-sass'
gem 'autoprefixer-rails'

group :development do
  gem 'rails_layout'
end

Install gems and generate bootstrap layouts:

bundle install

rails generate layout:install bootstrap3 --force

Authentication

Devise installation (simple - just to have a basic auth set up and styled) Add to the gemfile:

gem 'devise'

Install gem and run devise installation:

bundle install

rails generate devise:install

Add to config/environments/development.rb:

config.action_mailer.default_url_options = { host: 'localhost', port: 3000 }

Create your user model:

rails generate devise user

rake db:migrate

Add to navigation and stylize auth pages:

rails generate layout:navigation --force
rails generate layout:devise bootstrap3

Ready to Go! Play a little with auth by using the methods:

before_action :authenticate_user!
user_signed_in?
current_user
user_session

You can delete the toy controller with:

rails destroy controller hello

Push to Github

Github account is needed and git must be installed.

Create a new repository on github website.

Dont push files with sensitive date like the .env. Write them in .gitignore file.

Make the root directory of the app a git repo:

git init

Add in all files & changes so far to a staging area.

git add .

Commit all files, adding the message "Initial commit"

git commit -m "Initial commit"

Create a connection, named "origin" pointing at the GitHub repository you just created.

git remote add origin https://github.com/your_username/your_newly_created_repo.git

Send your commits in your "master" branch to GitHub

git push -u origin master