The Basics of Creating Rails Plugins — Ruby on Rails Guides

A Rails plugin is either an extension or a modification of the core framework. Plugins provide: A way for developers to share bleeding-edge ideas without hurting the stable code base. A segmented architecture so that units of code can be fixed or updated on their own release schedule. An outlet for the core developers so that they don't have to include every cool new feature under the sun. After reading this guide, you will know: How to create a plugin from scratch. How to write and run tests for the plugin. This guide describes how to build a test-driven plugin that will: Extend core Ruby classes like Hash and String. Add methods to ApplicationRecord in the tradition of the acts_as plugins. Give you information about where to put generators in your plugin. For the purpose of this guide pretend for a moment that you are an avid bird watcher. Your favorite bird is the Yaffle, and you want to create a plugin that allows other developers to share in the Yaffle goodness.