thirdrail

my opinionated rails template for hack club apps. i got tired of setting up the EXACT same stuff in every app, so now there's a robot that does it for me.

usage

rails new myapp \
    --no-rc \
    --skip-kamal \
    --skip-jbuilder \
    --skip-javascript \
    --skip-hotwire \
    -m https://raw.githubusercontent.com/24c02/thirdrail/main/template.rb

or swap that URL for a path if you've cloned it locally.

when it asks if you blindly trust my judgement, say yes and it'll pick all the good defaults for you. or pick and choose! you can do whatever you want all the time forever :-)

what you get

these are always installed:

• jb — json templates that aren't slow
• pry-rails — better console
• awesome_print — pretty prints objects
• dotenv-rails — loads .env.development
• also removes that annoying allow_browser versions: :modern thing

then it asks if you want:

thing	what it does
vite	real frontend bundling with hot reload. can add yarn + sass too.
phlex	views as ruby classes. it's good.
hack club auth	oauth with auth.hackclub.com. oidc by default, or api mode if you need to make server-side calls.
pundit	authorization policies. adds ApplicationPolicy and wires up the controller.
user model	User with hca_id, email, name, is_admin. sets up current_user, signed_in?, etc.
airctiverecord	airtable orm. you know the one.
public_identifiable	stripe-like public IDs (usr_abc123) without extra columns. uses hashid-rails.
bonus stuff	starter home/login pages with routes. only shows up if you have a user model.

env vars

put these in .env.development:

HACKCLUB_CLIENT_ID=...
HACKCLUB_CLIENT_SECRET=...
AIRTABLE_PAT=...  # if using airctiverecord

hack club auth

go to auth.hackclub.com, make an app, add this callback url:

http://localhost:3000/auth/hack_club/callback

(use your real domain in prod obviously)

oidc vs api mode

oidc is the default and is probably what you want. it uses omniauth_openid_connect directly.

api mode uses the omniauth-hack_club gem and adds HCAService for when you need to hit the hca api from your server:

HCAService.new(access_token).me
HCAService.new(access_token).check_verification(email: "zrl@hackclub.com")

running it

cd myapp
bin/rails db:migrate    # if you made a user model
bin/vite dev            # if you're using vite (in another terminal)
bin/rails server

files

thirdrail/
├── template.rb         # the main thing
├── vite.rb
├── phlex.rb
├── hack_club_auth.rb
├── pundit.rb
├── user.rb
├── airctiverecord.rb
├── public_identifiable.rb
└── bonus_stuff.rb