Templatus Inertia

Overview:

Templatus is an opinionated template for building web applications with Ruby on Rails and Inertia using Svelte.js. It simplifies the process of setting up a new application while following best practices. The template provides a live demo and has sister repositories for alternative approaches using Hotwire and API instead of Inertia.

Features:

• Backend:

  • Ruby 3.2
  • Ruby on Rails 7.0
  • ActionCable for WebSocket communication
  • PostgreSQL for using as SQL database
  • Sidekiq for background processing
  • Redis for caching, ActionCable, and Sidekiq

• Frontend:

  • Inertia as a protocol for frontend/backend communication
  • Tailwind CSS 3 to not have to write CSS at all
  • Tabler Icons for free SVG icons
  • Vite for bundling JavaScript and CSS with Hot Module Replacement (HMR) in development

• Development:

  • Puma-dev for using .test TLD (instead of localhost:3000) and https in development
  • Foreman for starting up the application locally
  • dotenv to load environment variables from .env into ENV
  • TypeScript for writing strongly-typed JavaScript
  • Prettier for auto-formatting TypeScript and Ruby code in Visual Studio Code

• Linting and testing:

  • RuboCop for Ruby static code analysis
  • RSpec for Ruby testing
  • ESLint for TypeScript static code analysis
  • Cypress for E2E testing

• Deployment:

  • Docker for production deployment, NOT for development
  • DockerRailsBase for fast building an optimized Docker image based on Alpine Linux
  • GitHub Actions for testing, linting, and building Docker image
  • Dependabot configuration for updating dependencies (with auto-merge)
  • Ready for serving assets via CDN like CloudFront
  • Honeybadger for error tracking in Ruby and TypeScript
  • Plausible for privacy-friendly analytics

• Production:

  • Lograge for single-line logging
  • Gzip and Brotli compression of dynamic responses (HTML, JSON) using Rack::Deflater, Rack::Brotli
  • Fine-tuned Content Security Policy (CSP)

Installation:

To install Templatus, follow these steps:

1. Install Ruby 3.2 and Ruby on Rails 7.0.
2. Set up a PostgreSQL database and configure the connection in the Rails application.
3. Install Sidekiq and Redis for background processing and caching.
4. Set up the frontend with Inertia, Tailwind CSS 3, Tabler Icons, and Vite.
5. Install the necessary development tools like Puma-dev, Foreman, dotenv, TypeScript, and Prettier.
6. Set up linting and testing with RuboCop, RSpec, ESLint, and Cypress.
7. Configure the deployment process using Docker, DockerRailsBase, GitHub Actions, Dependabot, and CDNs.
8. Set up error tracking with Honeybadger and privacy-friendly analytics with Plausible.
9. Configure the production environment with Lograge, compression using Rack::Deflater and Rack::Brotli, and a fine-tuned CSP.

Summary:

Templatus is a comprehensive template for building web applications with Ruby on Rails and Inertia using Svelte.js. It includes a wide range of features and technologies for both the backend and frontend development, as well as tools and configurations for development, testing, and deployment. The template focuses on optimized performance and security, as evidenced by the benchmarks performed on the demo installation. Templatus aims to simplify the process of setting up a new application while following best practices.