For small UX touches like “3 minutes ago”, I don’t want to pull in a giant date library. A Stimulus controller can use Intl.RelativeTimeFormat plus a lightweight difference calculation. The server renders the ISO timestamp (via time_tag), and the cont

If you’re using importmap, a clean Stimulus setup matters: it keeps controllers discoverable and avoids mystery load order bugs. I pin @hotwired/turbo-rails and @hotwired/stimulus, then use controllers index discovery to register everything. The payof

Direct uploads are great because they keep file traffic away from your Rails dynos, but the default UX is opaque. I attach a Stimulus controller that listens for Active Storage’s direct-upload:* events and updates a progress bar. This keeps the markup

Action Text is great, but you need to be deliberate about how you render it in a Turbo-powered UI. I keep the comment form inside a turbo_frame_tag so it can be replaced on validation errors (still 422). On success, I clear the form by replacing the f

For a notifications dropdown, I keep the list server-rendered and let Turbo Streams keep it fresh. The dropdown content sits in a turbo_frame_tag (so you can also navigate to a full notifications page), and the unread badge is a separate small target

Destructive actions should feel immediate. For delete links inside a list, I return a Turbo Stream that does turbo_stream.remove dom_id(record). That removes the DOM node without re-rendering the rest of the list, which avoids the common “jump” effect

Broadcasting is powerful, but it’s also easy to accidentally leak updates if everyone subscribes to a global stream. My default is to scope streams to a tenant boundary (like Current.account) and a resource. That means turbo_stream_from [current_accou

Turbo’s page cache is great until you have sensitive screens (account settings, billing) where the browser back button might show stale content. I handle this by setting cache-control headers and, for specific actions, disabling Turbo caching via turb

When a page has lots of dynamic pieces but I still want “just refresh it” semantics, I use Turbo’s morphing refreshes. With turbo_refreshes_with method: :morph, Turbo updates the DOM by morphing rather than doing a full replace, which tends to preserv

A lot of Rails apps have records that transition through states: queued, processing, done. With Hotwire, I render a status badge partial and broadcast replacements when the state changes. A background job updates the record, and the model broadcasts a

If a feature is fundamentally “live” (comments, activity), I reach for model broadcasts. Rails can broadcast Turbo Stream fragments on after_create_commit, and the UI subscribes with turbo_stream_from. The beauty is that it’s still server-rendered HTM

Copy buttons are everywhere (invite links, API keys, CLI commands). With Stimulus, I keep it tiny and resilient: use navigator.clipboard.writeText when available, and fall back to selecting a hidden input for older browsers. I also provide immediate f