Create a Gem Update Script

Published: Jan 19th, 2020

This is part of Joyful Rails, a list of recommendations to make developing your Rails app more productive and joyful.

In this article, we are talking about creating a gem update script.

When

I recommend creating a gem update script the first or second time you update the gems in your project.

I recommend updating your gems often. Every day or week that you are writing code is a good choice. For projects in active use but not in active development, every month is a good choice.

Why

Having a single command to update gems makes it easy to update them often.

Updating your gems often will make sure that you are using the latest versions of libraries, versions where known bugs, security vulnerabilities, and other problems are fixed.

How

Put the following code into the file bin/update_gems.

#!/bin/bash
set -e

test -z "$(git status --porcelain)" || (echo "Git repo not clean"; exit 1)

bundle update
rake
git commit -am "Updated gems"

Don’t forget to make your gem update script executable.

chmod +x bin/update_gems

Now you can update all of your gems with a single command: ./bin/update_gems.