Faster Rails asset precompilation via Capistrano .. just do it locally!

application.rb

# Speed things up by not loading Rails env
config.assets.initialize_on_precompile = false

deploy.rb

# Without turbo sprockets ... rm assets when we're done

namespace :deploy do
  task :default do
    update
    assets.precompile
    restart
    cleanup
    # etc
  end
end

namespace :assets do
  desc "Precompile assets locally and then rsync to app servers"
  task :precompile, :only => { :primary => true } do
    run_locally "bundle exec rake assets:precompile;"
    servers = find_servers :roles => [:app], :except => { :no_release => true }
    servers.each do |server|
      run_locally "rsync -av ./public/assets/ #{user}@#{server}:#{current_path}/public/assets/;"
    end
    run_locally "rm -rf public/assets"
  end
end

deploy_turbo.rb

# With turbo sprockets ... keeps assets around instead of rm'ing it

namespace :deploy do
  task :default do
    update
    assets.precompile
    restart
    cleanup
    # etc
  end
end

namespace :assets do
  desc "Precompile assets locally and then rsync to app servers"
  task :precompile, :only => { :primary => true } do
    run_locally "mkdir -p public/__assets; mv public/__assets public/assets;"
    run_locally "bundle exec rake assets:clean_expired; bundle exec rake assets:precompile;"
    servers = find_servers :roles => [:app], :except => { :no_release => true }
    servers.each do |server|
      run_locally "rsync -av ./public/assets/ #{user}@#{server}:#{current_path}/public/assets/;"
    end
    run_locally "mv public/assets public/__assets"
  end
end

I ended up turning this strategy into a rubygem. Thanks for the inspiration.

https://github.com/spagalloco/capistrano-local-precompile

@keighl I've created a fork of your gist that I used with Capistrano 3 and Rails 4: https://gist.github.com/basti/9232976

I've been looking for something like that for SO long .. and this one is the only that seamlessly work. Thank you !