rails

Multi-tenancy with apartment gem

SaaS applications serving multiple customers (tenants) need data isolation to prevent cross-tenant data leaks. The apartment gem provides schema-based multi-tenancy for PostgreSQL where each tenant gets a separate schema, ensuring complete database-le

Turbo Frame modal that renders server HTML

When I need a modal (new/edit/show), I avoid client-side templating by using a dedicated turbo_frame_tag as the modal container (often id='modal'). Links target that frame, so the response only replaces the modal content. Closing the modal is just swa

Bulk Upsert with insert_all + Unique Index

I stopped doing row-by-row imports once they started hammering the DB. In Migration (unique index), I added a real uniqueness guarantee on provider + uid, because bulk writes only stay correct if the database can enforce constraints. Then, in Bulk ups

Pagination with cursor-based approach

Traditional offset-based pagination becomes unreliable and slow for large datasets when records are frequently inserted or deleted—users can miss items or see duplicates across pages. Cursor-based pagination solves this by using an opaque token that e

Turbo Drive: disable caching on volatile admin pages

Turbo Drive caches pages aggressively, which is usually great. For volatile admin dashboards (counts, queues, toggles) you often want no-cache to avoid confusing “stale UI” bugs. turbo_cache_control makes the intent explicit.

Deterministic Sorting with Secondary Key

If you sort by a non-unique column (score, created_at), pagination can “skip” or “duplicate” records. Always add a secondary unique key like id for deterministic ordering.

Database indexes for query optimization

Proper indexing is the difference between millisecond and multi-second query response times. I add indexes to foreign keys automatically since Rails doesn't do this by default, and I create composite indexes for common query patterns that filter on mu

Use `touch_all` for Efficient “Bump Updated At”

When you need to invalidate caches by changing timestamps, use touch_all to avoid per-record callbacks. It’s fast, explicit, and doesn’t run unintended side effects.

Safe Pagination with Keyset (No OFFSET)

OFFSET gets slower as tables grow and becomes inconsistent under writes. Keyset pagination is stable and fast: paginate by (created_at, id) cursor. This is a common “senior Rails” upgrade for activity feeds.

Prevent Long Transactions with after_save_commit for Heavy Work

Heavy work inside a transaction increases lock time and deadlock risk. Use after_save_commit to schedule slow tasks (thumb generation, external sync) once the write is durable.

Avoid Memory Blowups: find_each + select Columns

Backfills often fail because we accidentally load full records and associations. Use select to fetch only needed columns and find_each to keep memory flat. This is basic, but it’s where outages come from.

ETag + Conditional GET for JSON API

ETags are a simple high-impact performance lever: they reduce bandwidth and controller CPU. Use stale? with a stable ETag component list and last_modified so intermediary caches and browsers can do conditional GET.