The RailsNotes Newsletter 🟥 ISSUE #27

🟥 ISSUE #27 (Starter Kit, Payments, Deployment and Jobs)

Author

Harrison Broadbent
February 18, 2024

Your face using my new Ruby on Rails Starter Kit to madly spin up a new side-project in an afternoon 😉 

— SPONSOR —

I’m launching a Ruby on Rails starter kit! It’s affordable and handles payments, authentication, login with Google/Github and much more.

Use the newsletter-exclusive code SK30 to save 30%! (only for the next 3 days so be quick!)

Welcome to The RailsNotes Newsletter — Issue #27!

I’ve got some very exciting news! I’ve officially launched the next RailsNotes UI product — the RailsNotes UI Ruby on Rails starter kit!

My Ruby on Rails starter kit is live! Use the code SK30 to save 30% if you buy in the next 3 days.

I’ve built the starter kit I wish existed. It’s affordable, and includes a core set of features that every app needs! 

The headline features are —

  • Payments 💰️ (with Stripe and Paddle),

  • Authentication 🔐 (Devise + password resets + Google/Github login),

  • Deployment 🚀 (Render, Heroku and Hatchbox),

  • Background Jobs 💼 (Redis and Sidekiq),

  • Tests 🧪 (Minitest and RSpec),

  • Plus bonus extras 🎉 (SEO tags, custom fonts etc) and extensive documentation. I’ve even put together an overview video if that’s more your style!

I announced it on Twitter a few days ago, but as a special thank-you 🙏 for reading the newsletter, I’ve got a special discount 🤑 for you!

»» Use the code SK30 when you checkout to save 30%! That coupon expires in 3 days, so be fast! As a reminder, you get free access to the Starter Kit if you’ve already purchased All Access (I’ve already sent you an email).

I’ve been building this behind the scenes for months now, so it’s awesome to be able to launch it! I’ve deliberately kept the template streamlined so that you can get up to speed and start shipping fast (I’ve already launched a new side-project with it!) — I’m really keen to hear your feedback!

One last thing — my mates at Tanda are hiring for a Platform Infrastructure Engineer, so if you know any great SREs in Australia/Brisbane, consider forwarding this to them! (I don’t normally shout out job listings, but Alex is a legend and huge supporter of this newsletter! 🙌 ) 

For this newsletter, I wanted to cover some of the different aspects of the template. Let’s dive in!

~ ✨ FEATURED ARTICLE ✨ ~

Will your app take payments? Or will it _take payments? 👀 

The Pay gem is awesome!

It wraps up Stripe and Paddle payments into one unified interface, letting you integrate with both pretty seamlessly. It does all the work of handling webhooks and subscription states on the backend, letting you ignore a bunch of (quite annoying and finicky) stuff.

It took a decent amount of time to wrap my head around and integrate with the starter kit, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to skip most of that 😉 

The Pay gem has thorough documentation if you’re interested in diving in yourself, otherwise, I found this great GoRails video that gives you a great overview of the gem. In retrospect, I probably should’ve started with this video, but oh well 😅 

Don’t be deceived by the random blog and the plain layout — this is by far the best Devise/OAuth guide I’ve ever found! It’s super detailed and walks you through every single step.

I randomly stumbled on it a few years ago, and I’ve referred back to it in just about every single Ruby on Rails app I’ve built since 😅

This is one of the first RailsNotes articles I ever wrote, and I still find it handy for getting a new app up and running on Render (even though these days I usually deploy to Hatchbox).

The article handles deploying everything a production Rails app needs — A web server, PostgreSQL, Redis, Sidekiq and cron jobs 🛠️ 

A short and sweet article I put together a few months ago to make it easy to spin up Redis and Sidekiq for a new Rails app. Nothing too groundbreaking here, but I use it as a reference whenever I spin up a side project (or a starter kit! 😉 )

~ ⚒️ HANDY TIP ~ 

→ Use ENV#fetch rather than Rails#env in setup files

Make sure to use ENV.fetch to check environment variables in Rails setup files (like config/puma.rb). Typically these files don’t load Rails, so methods like Rails.env.local? return an error.

Constrain a value to a given range with #clamp

I bumped into this doing some test deploys for the Starter Kit and it was a real head-scratcher!

~👀 BEHIND THE SCENES~ 

This is a private section 🔐 for readers with 2+ referrals!

I share behind-the-scenes updates on RailsNotes and RailsNotes UI (think traffic numbers, sales, upcoming updates etc.)

Want access? Learn about the ✨ referral program ✨ down below! 👇️ 

I’ve launched my Ruby on Rails template! It felt good to finally hit deploy and get it out there 😂 

Sales have been slow to start (2 sales total 👀 🙃 ), but I’m hoping they’ll pick up with a bit more of a concerted push this week — I deliberately kept the weekend launch pretty quiet so I’d have some time to onboard existing all-access users and make sure nothing blew up in my face 🧨 💥 😅 

Keep an eye out for the next edition where I’ll hopefully have some more interesting stats to share!

I’m planning to take a break from building RailsNotes UI products for a bit and have a bit of a mental refresh. I’m hoping to write a few more articles for the RailsNotes blog (I’ve been meaning to write a VS Code setup guide for ages now), plus branch out into trying to build some sort of SaaS.

I’ve slowly been collecting SaaS ideas for years now, and over the weekend I threw together a landing page (using the starter kit!) for a tool to share affiliated Amazon cart links. Time will tell if it turns into anything substantial, but it’s an idea I’ve had for years now and it felt good to finally act on it!

~ 🌯 WRAP UP ~ 

Thanks for reading! The quick wrap-up for this week is — 

  1. The RailsNotes UI Ruby on Rails Starter Kit is live! Use the promo code SK30 to save 30% on any purchase! (for the next 3 days only, so be quick!)

  2. The Rails ecosystem is alive and well! From awesome gems that handle one aspect of your app, to starter kits like mine which make building a new app a breeze, there’s a bunch of great stuff happening in the Ruby on Rails world.

Finally, thanks 🙏 to alex and tavo for referring people to this newsletter! (Alex referred 8 people! 🎉 🤯 )

Share the RailsNotes Newsletter!

Use your unique link below to refer new Ruby on Rails devs to this newsletter (and make me really happy!). I’ll reward you with coupon codes, access to a private section, and a free RailsNotes UI license key 👇️ 

  • [Refer 1] A small feature in the next newsletter (with a link to something you’re working on, or your socials)

  • [Refer 2] Permanent access to the behind-the-scenes section, above 👆️ 

  • [Refer 5] A $20 coupon for RailsNotes UI 📬️ 

  • [Refer 15] Free licence key for RailsNotes UI 🤑