When I create a rails app from scratch I like to include certain plugins to help me write the app, such as the Rspec testing framework instead of the built-in Test::Unit and jQuery instead of prototype.

• Rspec
• Rspec-rails (NB: I use rahoul’s fork of rspec-rails)
• Cucumber
• Webrat
• jRails
• Demeters Revenge

And here are the commands in the order I run them to create the blank app.

# Create the rails app
cd ~/Sites/apps/
rails myapp
cd myapp

# Setup a git repo
git init
# Add all files and make the initial import
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Import"

# Add the plugins as git submodules
git submodule add git://github.com/dchelimsky/rspec.git vendor/plugins/rspec
git submodule add git://github.com/rahoulb/rspec-rails.git vendor/plugins/rspec-rails
git submodule add git://github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber.git vendor/plugins/cucumber
git submodule add git://github.com/brynary/webrat.git vendor/plugins/webrat
git submodule add git://github.com/caius/demeters_revenge.git vendor/plugins/demeters_revenge

# Commit the changes
git ci -am "Adding all needed submodules"

# Replace TestUnit with rspec
git rm -r test/
ruby script/generate rspec
# Replace stories with cucumber features
rm -rf stories/
ruby script/generate cucumber

# Add the changes to git
git add .
git ci -m "Committing initial rspec/cucumber files"

# Install jRails, we have to install it using script/plugin
# Remove existing javascript files
git rm public/javascripts/*
mkdir public/javascripts
# Add jrails
ruby script/plugin install http://ennerchi.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/jrails
git add vendor/plugins/jrails/ public/javascripts
git ci -m "Adding jRails to replace Prototype"

And now you have a blank app waiting for you to write using features for full stack testing, and rspec for testing model and controller code.

Updated 2008-11-04

Added demeters revenge and jRails plugins.

Update 2008-11-05

I’ve also blogged the .gitignore file I use with rails apps as well. Usually add it into my apps before running git init