Setting up the bundler-audit gem for Rails with Github Actions

Using the bundler-audit gem is a great way to keep track of vulnerabilities in your Gemfile.

Once installed it's pretty easy to run bundle-audit as a check on every PR submitted to your repo. GitHub Actions is a quick solution that can help accomplish this.

Free or cheap Ruby on Rails Hosting Options

In my work as a Ruby on Rails developer, I usually encounter applications that run on environments using Terraform or some repeatable infrastructure manager. For Rails apps that need to scale this can be helpful since it provides a way to make fully independent (and repeatable) environments, or copies of your application, that can be “spun” up by the click of a button and destroyed just as easily. 

This is helpful in managing Cloud resources since as anyone who’s used AWS, Azure or Google Cloud can tell you, clicking through multiple screens to configure resources can lead to mistakes and orphaned paid resources that cost you money you didn’t want to spend.

Medium author @ajays871 posted a good writeup about how to go about getting a Rails app deployed using Terraform.

On the flip side, the provisioning of multiple resources across a Cloud provider can be overkill for many Rails side projects. For those apps there are still free and almost free options for hosting your app. Some can be cheaper than hosting a Wordpress or PHP site.

Setting Up Brakeman gem for Rails with Github Actions

The Brakeman gem is a highly useful tool in keeping your development habits clean.

From their website:
Brakeman is a free vulnerability scanner specifically designed for Ruby on Rails applications. It statically analyzes Rails application code to find security issues at any stage of development.

Once installed it's pretty easy to have Brakeman checks run on every PR submitted to your repo. GitHub Actions is a quick solution that can help accomplish this.