Hosted gem/plugin development infrastructure

Introduction

Developing gems is often tricky because they act like separate projects with regard to the applications you use them in.

"Hosted" development infrastructure makes gem development easier by including them into (making them "hosted by") your live application. Then you update your gem's code like you update regular application code.

Setup

Add to your Gemfile:

gem "hosted_gem_development"
#gem "hosted_gem_development", :git => "git://github.com/dadooda/hosted_gem_development.git"     # Edge version.

Install the gem:

$ bundle install

Generate essentials:

$ rails generate hosted_gem_development

Ensure config/boot.rb does this before the Gemfile line:

require File.expand_path("../clone_hosted_gems", __FILE__)

Ensure .gitignore contains the following:

/vendor/gems_dev/
/vendor/plugins_dev/

Check out the gem you are working on:

$ cd vendor/gems_dev
$ git clone git://github.com/author/cool_gem.git

Include the gem into your Gemfile:

gem "cool_gem", :path => "vendor/gems/cool_gem"

Now you can work on vendor/gems_dev/cool_gem like you do on regular application code. Changes to the gem become instantly available to the application whenever you load your Rails environment.

Copyright

Licensed under the MIT License.

Feedback

Send bug reports, suggestions and criticisms through project's page on GitHub.