Rake tasks for managing your spork server. Check the Rakefile to bypass loading Rails to run these rake tasks super fast.

Rakefile

#!/usr/bin/env rake
# Add your own tasks in files placed in lib/tasks ending in .rake,
# for example lib/tasks/capistrano.rake, and they will automatically be available to Rake.

# If certain tasks are called, don't load Rails!
if %w(spork:start spork:restart spork:stop).include?(Rake.application.top_level_tasks.first)
  # Load the rake tasks
  Dir.glob("#{File.expand_path("../lib/tasks", __FILE__)}/*.rake").each { |r| import r }
else
  require File.expand_path('../config/application', __FILE__)
  Concourse::Application.load_tasks
end

spork.rake

require 'spork'
require 'spork/runner'
# Let's fork spork and put in the background and forget about it.
# You can start|stop|restart spork using this rake task
#
# Examples
#
#   rake spork:start
#   # => starts spork and detaches the process
#
#   rake spork:stop
#   # => kills the spork process based on the pid stored in tmp/spork.pid
#
#   rake spork:restart
#   # => stops then starts spork
#
namespace :spork do
  desc "Starts spork server"
  task :start do
    begin
      print "Starting spork..."
      pid = fork do
        # Swallows spork's notifications. I don't want it spewing all over my terminal from the background.
        $stdout = File.new('/dev/null', 'w')
        $stderr = File.new('/dev/null', 'w')
        
        # If you want to change the default config you can
        # specify the command line options here
        # For example to change the port:
        # options = ["--port", "7443"]
        options = []
        Spork::Runner.run(options, $stderr, $stderr)
      end
      # Detach the pid, keep track of the pid, and wait for Rails to start.
      Process.detach(pid)
      File.open("#{tmp_dir}/spork.pid", "w"){|f| f.write pid}
      seconds = 15
      puts  "\033[35m[Giving Rails #{seconds} seconds to start]\033[0m\n"
      puts "\033[36mYou can change the wait time in lib/tasks/spork.rake \nif Rails is taking longer than #{seconds} seconds to load\033[0m\n"
      sleep seconds
      puts  "\033[32m[Sporkified!]\033[0m\n"
    rescue StandardError => e
      print  "\033[31m[FAILED]\033[0m\n"
      puts e.inspect
    end
  end
  
  desc "Stops the spork server"
  task :stop do
    print "Stopping spork..."
    if File.exist?("#{tmp_dir}/spork.pid")
      pid = File.read("#{tmp_dir}/spork.pid").to_i
      begin
        Process.kill("INT", pid)
        print "\033[32m[OK]\033[0m\n"
        sleep 1
      rescue Errno::ESRCH => e
        print "\033[33m[not running]\033[0m\n"
      rescue StandardError => e
        print "\033[31m[FAILED]\033[0m\n"
        puts e.inspect
      end
    else
      print "\033[33m[not running]\033[0m\n"
    end
    print "\033[30mis it a spoon? is it a fork?\033[0m\n"
  end
  
  desc "Restart the spork server"
  task :restart => [:stop, :start]
  
  def tmp_dir
    File.expand_path('../../../tmp', __FILE__)
  end
  
  def process_running?(process)
    return unless File.exist?("#{tmp_dir}/spork.pid")
    pid = File.read("#{tmp_dir}/#{process}.pid").to_i
    begin
      Process.kill(0, pid)
    rescue Errno::ESRCH => e
      return false
    end
  end
  
end

some simpler tasks at https://gist.github.com/2870684