Foreman

Using Foreman

This article assumes you are using OSX, that you've seen the command line before, that you have a Rails app with Style Guide installed and that you've written at least one partial.

If you're new to the command line, consult the Terminal.app guide.

If you need to make a new Rails application, consult the Rails app guide.

If you need to install Style Guide, consult the install guide.

Let's say your application lives in ~/workspace/client-app for simplicity. When you see this, just mentally replace it with your application's directory.

Installing Foreman

Foreman is a great way to get your Rails app and Guard running side-by-side from a single command.

Let's open ~/workspace/client-app in Sublime Text, then open Gemfile and add Foreman as a dependency with the following line:

  gem "foreman"

Next, open a Terminal window and change to your application directory with cd ~/workspace/client-app.

You should see the foreman gem installation message.

Making a Procfile

Foreman uses a file called Procfile to run multiple commands. Each line of a Procfile is in the format name_of_command: command.

Let's open a new file in Sublime Text with Command+N. It will contain the following:

  web: bundle exec rails server
  guard: bundle exec guard

Then, save this file into ~/workspace/client-app/Procfile.

Fixing Guard

When running inside Foreman, Guard causes some strange things to happen. Let's turn Guard's interactive command line off by editing the Guardfile. Use Sublime Text to open ~/workspace/client-app/Guardfile and add the following line:

  interactor :off

Then, save the Guardfile.

Running Foreman

Back in our Terminal window, we can now run foreman start, and it will start both Rails and Guard simultaneously.