Ruby & Rails Developer Toolkit

A powerful VS Code extension for Ruby and Rails development featuring one-click testing, debugging, and process management. Streamline your Rails workflow with intelligent test runners and application controls.

✨ Key Features

🧪 RSpec Testing

• One-Click Testing: Run/Debug buttons appear above each test block
• Smart Execution: Target specific tests or entire spec files
• Integrated Debugging: Full rdbg debugger support with breakpoints
• Run & Debug: New combined action that runs tests and automatically starts debugging

🚀 Application Management

• Process Control: Start, stop, and monitor Rails servers and background jobs
• Smart Debugging: Attach debugger to running Ruby processes
• Custom Commands: Configure any Ruby/shell commands via JSON
• Real-time Status: Visual indicators for running/stopped/crashed processes

⚙️ Feature Management

• Environment Configuration: Toggle feature flags with checkbox controls
• Smart Environment Variables: Enable/disable environment variable groups per feature
• Real-time Updates: Changes take effect immediately for new processes
• Persistent State: Feature states saved across VS Code sessions

🚀 Quick Start

Testing with RSpec

1. Open any *_spec.rb file
2. Click Run for fast execution or Debug to step through code
3. Use Run & Debug from the dropdown menu for automatic debugging
4. Title bar buttons work on entire spec files

Application Runner

1. Open App Runner panel from sidebar
2. Start Rails server: Click ▶️ next to "Web Server"
3. Debug running processes: Click 🔍 next to any Ruby process
4. View logs: Click 📄 for dedicated output channels

Feature Management

1. Open Features panel from sidebar (below App Runner)
2. Enable/disable features: Click checkboxes to toggle feature states
3. View feature details: Hover over items to see environment variable configurations
4. Persistent settings: Feature states are automatically saved and restored

⚙️ Configuration

App Commands

Create .vscode/app_commands.jsonc for custom commands:

{
  // App Runner configuration for VS Code Ruby & Rails Toolkit
  "commands": [
    {
      "code": "RAILS",
      "description": "Web Server",
      "command": "bundle exec rails s",
      "commandType": "ruby"
    },
    {
      "code": "JOBS", 
      "description": "Jobs Worker",
      "command": "bundle exec rake jobs:work",
      "commandType": "ruby"
    },
    {
      "code": "WEBPACKER",
      "description": "Webpacker", 
      "command": "yarn dev",
      "commandType": "shell"
    }
  ],
  "features": [
    {
      "code": "DEBUG",
      "name": "Debug Mode",
      "description": "Enables debugging and verbose logging",
      "environment": {
        "whitelist": ["DEBUG=true", "VERBOSE=1", "LOG_LEVEL=debug"],
      }
    },
    {
      "code": "PERFORMANCE",
      "name": "Performance Monitoring", 
      "description": "Enables performance profiling and benchmarks",
      "environment": {
        "whitelist": ["PROFILE=true", "BENCHMARK=1"],
      }
    }
  ]
}

Features Configuration

The features array defines toggleable feature flags that control environment variables:

• code: Unique identifier for the feature
• name: Display name shown in the Features panel
• description: Tooltip description explaining the feature's purpose
• environment.whitelist: Environment variables set when feature is enabled

When a feature is enabled via checkbox, its whitelist environment variables are applied to new processes. When disabled, blacklist variables are applied instead.

Settings

• rubyToolkit.automaticallyShowOutputForCommand: Auto-show output (default: true)
• rubyToolkit.clearOutputChannelOnProcessRun: Clear output on restart (default: true)
• rubyToolkit.showProcessOutputOnServer500Errors: Show output on 500 errors (default: true)
• rubyToolkit.hideAnsiPunctuation: Hide ANSI escape code punctuation and control characters in log output (default: true)

🎯 Key Actions

Test Controls

• Run: Fast headless test execution
• Debug: Step-through debugging with breakpoints

Process Controls

• ▶️ Run: Start stopped processes
• ▶️ Run & Debug: Start stopped processes and immediately start debugging
• ⏹️ Stop: Terminate running processes
• 🔍 Debug: Attach debugger to running Ruby processes
• 📄 Show Output: View process logs with clickable file paths

Feature Controls

• ☑️ Enable/Disable: Check/uncheck boxes to toggle features
• 🔄 Refresh: Update features list from configuration
• ℹ️ Hover Info: View environment variable details in tooltips

🐛 Troubleshooting

• No rspec commands: Ensure file ends with _spec.rb and contains valid RSpec syntax
• Debug not working: Add debug gem to your Gemfile

📋 Requirements

• Ruby project with RSpec
• Bundler for dependencies
• VS Code 1.80.0+
• debug gem for debugging

Happy Rails Development! 🚂✨