Easy RSVP

An accountless app to organize events and invite people.

Read more: https://www.kevinbongart.net/projects/easy-rsvp.html

Development

Use Ruby from .ruby-version, Node from .node-version, and a running local PostgreSQL server:

test -e .env || cp .env.sample .env
bin/setup

bin/setup installs the Ruby and npm dependencies, prepares the database, and starts bin/dev. Pass --skip-server when only preparing the checkout. No seed data is required. Development uploads use storage/development and do not need S3 credentials.

The event creation and RSVP flows need no environment configuration locally. Set both ADMIN_USER and ADMIN_PASSWORD to use the site-wide dashboard at /admin/events. The application does not send email.

Product and access rules

Easy RSVP has no accounts. A published event has a public URL for guests and a separate organizer URL containing a secret token. Anyone with the organizer URL can edit or publish the event and manage all its RSVPs; that token does not grant access to the site-wide dashboard.

Guests can delete only RSVPs created in their current browser session. When an event is unpublished, its public page is unavailable and guests cannot add or delete RSVPs, including ones their session previously created. Existing RSVPs are preserved. The organizer can still edit the event and its RSVPs, and republishing restores public access. Deleting an event through its token-authorized endpoint also deletes its RSVPs, although the current interface does not expose an event-deletion control.

Events are date-only by default. A disclosure reveals optional start, end, and browser-detected IANA time-zone fields. Entering either time requires both; a bare hour such as 7 means 7:00 PM. Clearing both times removes the schedule, and both times must be on the event date. Every published event offers an .ics download. Date-only events become all-day calendar entries, while timed events use exact UTC instants for consistent display in each calendar user's chosen time zone.

The HTTP Basic-authenticated dashboard shows creation-date statistics; an event's scheduled date does not affect those charts. Its event list shows attachment count and stored size, can show only events with attachments, and can show only events with a specific time. It can sort by ID, RSVP count, or attachment size.

Configuration

The checked-in .env.sample contains the settings commonly needed for local development and operations. Keep secrets in an untracked .env locally and in the deployment environment in production.

Setting	When it is needed
ADMIN_USER, ADMIN_PASSWORD	Both are required to open the site-wide dashboard.
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID, S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	Production Active Storage access; development and tests use disk.
HONEYBADGER_API_KEY	Production exception reports and postdeploy markers.
DOKKU_HOST	CircleCI deploys and the guarded production database tasks.
DOKKU_PG_SERVICE	Production database backup/import tasks only.
PG_BIN	Optional PostgreSQL client directory when automatic discovery is unsuitable.
FIREFOX_BINARY	Optional nonstandard Firefox path for browser specs.
SCOUT_APM_API_KEY	Optional Scout APM reporting in production.
RAILS_YJIT=false	Optional production override to disable Rails' default YJIT.

Dokku supplies database connection and revision values during deploys. The app has no DOMAIN setting: absolute public and organizer links use the host and scheme of the current HTTPS request. Calendar downloads use the canonical production origin configured in config/environments/production.rb. Configure that origin and the Dokku/nginx hostname together if the public domain changes.

Tests

Install Firefox and geckodriver alongside the bundled test gems. On macOS, Firefox may be installed as /Applications/Firefox.app; FIREFOX_BINARY can select another installation. geckodriver must be on PATH (for example through Homebrew). CircleCI installs both with its browser-tools orb.

Prepare the local test database on first setup:

RAILS_ENV=test bin/rails db:create db:schema:load

Run the same checks as CircleCI (Bundler-audit, Brakeman, Ruby/ERB/JavaScript/SCSS linting, Rails eager loading, asset compilation, and the entire randomized RSpec suite, including headless Firefox):

bin/ci

Useful focused commands:

bundle exec erb_lint --lint-all               # all ERB templates
npm run lint:js                               # application JavaScript
npm run lint:scss                             # application SCSS
bundle exec rspec --tag '~js'                 # fast model/request/feature/unit tests
bundle exec rspec spec/system/javascript_smoke_spec.rb  # passing Firefox smoke flows
bundle exec rspec --tag js                    # all Firefox smoke and failure-recovery specs
bundle exec rspec --seed 18467                # reproduce a full-suite ordering

The suite has no pending regressions and covers models, presenter units, HTTP requests, independent organizer/guest sessions, database import/backup utilities, Rack Test form flows, and real browser interactions. Firefox actually drops a PNG into Trix, submits it through Active Storage's direct-upload endpoint, waits for the returned image to load, saves it with an event, reloads the public page, and edits text while preserving the image. Clipboard, RSVP-again, Bootstrap modals, Turbo validation responses, modal cache cleanup, and Turbo deletion also have smoke coverage. Firefox specs enable real CSRF protection, including for uploads. Propshaft resolves current source in development, so local CI precompilation cannot leave it serving stale styles or scripts. Restart an already running development server after changing environment configuration (bin/rails restart for Puma). Admin chart coverage checks real Firefox hover/focus tooltips, navigation, empty data, and narrow layouts, alongside unit tests for projections and chart scaling. Request-level performance regressions keep query counts and warmed server response budgets bounded for the homepage, event creation and display, organizer views and updates, RSVP creation, and the site-wide dashboard. Ordinary paths have a 100 ms request ceiling, while rendering 100 public or organizer RSVPs has 150 ms and 300 ms respectively. The 1,000-row dashboard has 1,200 ms; separate SQL and database ceilings remain much lower. These are local/CI regression tripwires rather than production capacity benchmarks.

Tests require local events_test. They use synthetic dashboard credentials, transactional records, a temporary disk storage directory removed after the suite, test jobs, and WebMock to reject external Ruby HTTP requests. WebDriver's localhost traffic is allowed. No production imports or real S3 operations are part of the suite.

All 19 original pending expectations now pass. Guest RSVP additions/deletions are blocked on unpublished events while organizer editing remains available. Dashboard counts and projections use creation dates. The editor and direct-upload endpoint accept declared PNG/JPEG/GIF/WebP files between 1 byte and 10 MB; failed Trix uploads show an error and permit another attempt. Because files upload directly to storage, the endpoint can enforce declared metadata and signed upload length but cannot inspect the bytes before issuing the storage URL. If organizer-link email delivery is ever restored, it should be designed and verified as a new feature rather than relying on the removed legacy implementation.

The RSVP migrations enforce supported response values with a validated PostgreSQL check constraint. An aggregate review of the production-derived development data found no invalid responses, so validation required no data cleanup or coercion.

The admin dashboard shows the all-time total with its earliest creation date, current-year count and projection, and current-month count and projection alongside three compact blue charts: annual counts, the last 12 completed months plus this month, and this month's running daily total. Solid lines show actual counts; dashed segments show extrapolations at the current average per calendar day (including today). Hover, tap, or keyboard-focus a point for its count; the current endpoint of the monthly history includes both the actual count so far and the estimated final total. The yearly chart has separate points for this year's actual count through today and its December 31 projection, connected by a dashed segment. These are server-rendered SVGs with CSS tooltips and no charting dependency.

bin/ci writes JUnit results to tmp/test-results/rspec.xml. Failed system tests save screenshots under tmp/screenshots/; CircleCI retains both. CircleCI deploys successful main builds to Dokku. The app exposes Rails' lightweight /up health endpoint, which Dokku must successfully probe before switching production traffic to a new web container. After that switch, the app.json postdeploy task reports Dokku's exact GIT_REV to Honeybadger. The task fails visibly when its configuration or request fails, so a missing deploy marker cannot be mistaken for success. Bundler-audit, Brakeman, and Rails Omakase are gates in bin/ci. Pull requests that change only Markdown files or files under docs/ skip the expensive application checks. A documentation-only commit on main also skips the production deploy.

Back up the production database

Create a private, timestamped PostgreSQL archive and download it to the ignored db/backups/ directory:

bin/rails db:backup_production

The task requires DOKKU_HOST and DOKKU_PG_SERVICE, using the same settings as the development database import below. It creates a temporary export on Dokku, downloads it through a reserved local partial file, checks the archive catalog and reads the complete archive with pg_restore, publishes it with owner-only permissions, and removes the remote temporary file. Cleanup failure makes the task fail and reports the exact remote path. It does not change either the production or development database. Treat every downloaded archive as production user data and keep it out of source control.

These checks catch truncation and archive read errors, but only a successful restore proves that a backup is usable. Before an irreversible migration, restore the new archive into a disposable local database and inspect the data.

Refresh development data from Dokku

Stop local Rails servers/consoles holding database connections, and ensure events_development exists (bin/rails db:create on first setup). You need SSH and SCP access to the Dokku server, plus pg_dump, pg_restore, dropdb, and createdb compatible with the production PostgreSQL version.

Set DOKKU_HOST to the SSH destination and DOKKU_PG_SERVICE to the linked Dokku PostgreSQL service (which can differ from the app name). Both are required and can be set in your untracked .env:

DOKKU_HOST=root@your-dokku-host DOKKU_PG_SERVICE=your-service-name bin/rails db:pull_production

The task prompts you to type events_development. It refuses other database names, non-development Rails environments, and remote destination hosts. It exports production to a temporary file on Dokku, copies and validates the dump, backs up and validates the existing development database, then replaces it. It resets Rails' database environment metadata to development and attempts to restore the previous local database automatically if replacement fails.

Setting	Purpose
DOKKU_PG_SERVICE	Required linked PostgreSQL service name; no guessed default
DOKKU_HOST	Required SSH destination, e.g. root@your-dokku-host; no default
PG_BIN	Directory containing PostgreSQL tools, if automatic discovery selects the wrong version or finds none
CONFIRM_PULL_PRODUCTION	Set to exactly events_development for an intentional noninteractive replacement

Also set DOKKU_HOST in CircleCI project environment variables before deploying. The deploy job uses its hostname portion and connects as the dokku user; the import task uses the full SSH destination.

Configure HONEYBADGER_API_KEY in the Dokku app environment before merging a deployment that includes monitoring. A key in the local .env configures only local processes and is not copied to Dokku. Honeybadger error reporting is disabled in development and test; production reports exceptions without session data or Insights telemetry. Organizer-token URL segments and UUID-shaped values are scrubbed from both application logs and Honeybadger notices.

Rails enables YJIT in production. If its memory overhead is unsuitable for the Dokku host, set RAILS_YJIT=false on the app and restart it; the application will boot without enabling YJIT. Removing the setting restores the Rails default.

The production database is only exported. The remote temporary dump is removed after copying; a cleanup failure is reported. Production and pre-import local archives remain under ignored tmp/database_backups/, with directory mode 0700 and archive mode 0600. Keep the previous local archive until the import is verified, then delete unneeded copies containing real user data.

After importing, apply any pending local migrations with bin/rails db:migrate. This task copies database rows only; it does not copy attachment files. In development, imported amazon blobs resolve to local disk. Imported images are unavailable until their files are copied into local storage through a separately authorized export. Never fall back to S3 for missing local files. Unknown storage service names fail closed.

The import tests use fake commands and never access Dokku or replace a database:

bundle exec rspec spec/lib/production_database_pull_spec.rb

Engineering and assessment

• Rails engineering playbook — shared across repositories, cloned as a sibling directory
• Current application and agent reference
• Codebase assessment and remediation plan

Assets and editor

The application uses the standard Rails 8 asset stack: Propshaft for digests and delivery, dartsass-rails for Bootstrap and application SCSS, jsbundling-rails/esbuild for JavaScript, Turbo for navigation, and Stimulus for small interactions. The layout loads integrity-protected CSS and JavaScript with data-turbo-track="reload", so Turbo reloads the page when either compiled asset changes.

Action Text owns event descriptions, Trix integration, rendering, and Active Storage direct uploads. Trix 2.1.19 and the matching Rails Action Text JavaScript are locked npm dependencies and imported by the application entry point, as the Action Text generator does for Node-bundled Rails apps. There is no custom Trix download or build script. The original events.body values were migrated into Action Text before the legacy column was removed in a later deployment. That removal backfills any missing Action Text rows and preserves divergent cutover values in legacy_event_body_conflicts for explicit review. Rich-text images render from their original blobs, so production does not need ImageMagick or libvips for this feature. Bootstrap 5.3.8 is built from its locked npm package. The JavaScript bundle imports only the Alert and Modal plugins used by the app and is minified for delivery. Bootstrap's required Popper peer remains locked but is excluded from the bundle because neither plugin uses it. jQuery and the old vendored JavaScript copies are gone.

Run npm ci after checking out or updating the lockfile. Use bin/dev for local development; it starts Rails plus the Dart Sass and JavaScript watchers. Saving an SCSS file rebuilds the stylesheet automatically, and Propshaft serves its new fingerprint on refresh. Normal development never requires assets:clean, assets:clobber, or a manual Sass build. Development deliberately ignores any precompiled manifest left in public/assets, so local CI output cannot pin the server to stale files. bin/ci audits the locked npm graph, builds both asset entrypoints through Rails' assets:precompile hooks, and exercises the real Firefox paste/upload specs. Node 24.13.0 is selected locally by .node-version; buildpack deploys follow the 24.x range in package.json.

Dokku uses the pinned Node and Ruby buildpacks in .buildpacks, in that order. The Node buildpack runs npm ci and npm run build; the Ruby buildpack then reinstalls the locked JavaScript build dependencies, builds Sass through its Ruby gem, and precompiles all assets with Propshaft. This remains valid after the Node buildpack prunes development dependencies. Do not set SKIP_YARN_INSTALL on Dokku: unlike CI, the Ruby stage needs those install hooks to restore the pruned build tools. BUILDPACK_URL must not be set for the app because it overrides the ordered buildpack list.

Organizer URL logging and proxy rollout are covered in Organizer link privacy.