You've got a game-changing idea and need a fast, efficient setup. Ruby on Rails is perfect for MVPs, Tailwind handles CSS, and Vite offers speedy updates and HMR. But existing guides are flawed, and the vite_rails gem doesn’t seamlessly integrate with HMR and Tailwind. This guide will show you how to set up a Rails app with Vite, Tailwind, Stimulus, and Hotwire, ensuring everything works with rapid reloads and no hassles. Let's get started.

Vite

First, we start by creating a new Rails application and opting for Tailwind as our CSS framework:

rails new rails_vite_tailwind_stimulus
cd rails_vite_tailwind_stimulus

Here, we're creating a new Rails application named rails_vite_tailwind_stimulus with the default Rails database SQLite. If you need a different database configuration, feel free to choose one that suits your needs.

Open new repository using text editor of your preference.

Next, we'll briefly follow the Vite Ruby guide by adding the vite_rails gem to our Gemfile and installing it. Run the following command:

bundle add vite_rails

This will install the vite_rails gem, which will allow us to run another command so Vite can handle all the stuff we need under the hood.

Now, run:

bundle exec vite install

This command will:

• Add the bin/vite file to start the dev server and run commands.
• Install vite and vite-plugin-ruby.
• Create the vite.config.ts and config/vite.json files.
• Generate a sample application.js entry point in your app.
• Inject tag helpers into the default application.html.erb layout.

If you've followed along correctly, you should see in your terminal:

Vite ⚡️ Ruby successfully installed! 🎉

Meaning everything is going well, up to this point.

Now, let's move on to the fun part: setting up HMR, and auto-reloading.

Neatly there is a Vite plugin for that called vite-plugin-rails

Install the plugin by running:

yarn add vite-plugin-rails

Then, update your vite.config.ts to look like this:

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import ViteRails from "vite-plugin-rails";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [ViteRails()],
});

Secondly, by default, Rails uses importmaps, which can conflict with Vite bundling. To avoid this, simply remove the following line from application.html.erb:

<%# application.html.erb %>
<%= javascript_importmap_tags %>

Thirdly, you might notice some console errors indicating that Vite isn't connecting to the correct server. To fix this, configure vite.config.ts to match your localhost development setup.

Your vite.config.ts should now look like this:

//vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "vite";
import ViteRails from "vite-plugin-rails";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [ViteRails()],
  server: {
    hmr: {
      host: "localhost",
      port: 3036,
    },
  },
});

Just before we starting the server, let's create our root page to test our Tailwind and Stimulus setup.

Generate a controller:

rails generate controller StaticPages homepage

Update config/routes.rb by adding:

# routes.rb
root "static_pages#homepage"

Tailwind

Let's add Tailwind CSS to our project. Start by installing Tailwind and its dependencies, then generate the necessary configuration files:

yarn add -D tailwindcss postcss autoprefixer
npx tailwindcss init -p

Next, update the tailwind.config.js file to include the paths to all your template files:

//tailwind.config.js
/** @type {import('tailwindcss').Config} */
export default {
  content: [
    "./app/views/**/*.rb",
    "./app/views/**/*.html.erb",
    "./app/views/layouts/*.html.erb",
    "./app/helpers/**/*.rb",
    "./app/assets/stylesheets/**/*.css",
    "./app/javascript/**/*.js",
  ],
  theme: {
    extend: {},
  },
  plugins: [],
};

Now, add Tailwind's layers to your Vite application by creating an application.css file:

touch app/javascript/entrypoints/application.css

Then, add the following Tailwind directives:

/* application.css */
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;    

To ensure that stylesheets are bundled by Vite, update your application.html.erb:

<%# application.html.erb %>
<%= vite_stylesheet_tag 'application', data: { "turbo-track": "reload" } %>

Next, create a bin/dev file to streamline the process of running both Rails and Vite servers:

touch bin/dev
chmod +x bin/dev

Add the following script to /bin/dev:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

if ! gem list foreman -i --silent; then
  echo "Installing foreman..."
  gem install foreman
fi

# Default to port 3000 if not specified
export PORT="${PORT:-3000}"

# Let the debug gem allow remote connections,
# but avoid loading until `debugger` is called
export RUBY_DEBUG_OPEN="true"
export RUBY_DEBUG_LAZY="true"

exec foreman start -f Procfile.dev "$@"

Finally, ensure your Procfile.dev starts both servers:

# Procfile.dev
vite: bin/vite dev
web: bin/rails s -p 3000

Now, run ./bin/dev. You can start adding Tailwind classes directly to your views, like in homepage.html.erb:

<%# homepage.html.erb %>
<div>
  <h1 class="font-bold text-4xl text-indigo-500">StaticPages#homepage</h1>
  <p>Find me in app/views/static_pages/homepage.html.erb</p>
</div>

You should see the following:

This confirms that Tailwind CSS is working. You can now test hot reloading by editing CSS classes directly in your views.

Stimulus

Finally, let's add Stimulus to our setup.

First, install stimulus-vite-helpers by running:

# Adding stimulus and stimulus-vite-helpers
yarn add @hotwired/stimulus stimulus-vite-helpers

Then, update app/javascript/entrypoints/application.js as follows:

//application.js
import { Application } from "@hotwired/stimulus";
import { registerControllers } from "stimulus-vite-helpers";

// Start the Stimulus application
const application = Application.start();

// Enable debug mode and warnings in development environment
application.debug = process.env.NODE_ENV === "development";
application.warnings = true;

// Expose the Stimulus application to the global window object
window.Stimulus = application;

// Import and register all Stimulus controllers
try {
  const controllers = import.meta.glob("~/controllers/**/*_controller.js", {
    eager: true,
  });
  registerControllers(application, controllers);
} catch (error) {
  console.error("Error registering Stimulus controllers:", error);
}

To test Stimulus, update homepage.html.erb by adding data-controller="hello" to the HTML:

<%# homepage.html.erb %>
<div>
  <h1 data-controller="hello" class="font-bold text-4xl text-indigo-500">StaticPages#homepage</h1>
  <p>Find me in app/views/static_pages/homepage.html.erb</p>
</div>

By default, Rails 7 includes a hello_controller.js that will change "StaticPages#homepage" to "Hello, World!", confirming that everything is working correctly.

Wrap Up

That's it! You've set up a Rails app with Vite, Tailwind, and Stimulus, complete with auto-reloading for a smooth development experience. You’ve avoided common setup issues, so now you can focus on building your MVP. Go turn your idea into reality—this setup might just help you achieve the ultimate developer's dream of becoming a farmer! 🎉

Github repository for the boilerplate:

https://github.com/EdvardasBaravykas/rails_vite_tailwind_stimulus