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Create a Rails API Quickly

Create a Rails API Quickly#

Modern Rails supports API-only applications without the old rails-api gem.

Create the App#

gem install rails
rails new my_api --api
cd my_api

The --api flag makes ApplicationController inherit from ActionController::API, skips view/helper/asset generation, and starts with a smaller middleware stack.

Generate a Resource#

bin/rails generate scaffold user email:string cell:string
bin/rails db:migrate
bin/rails server

Then test:

http://localhost:3000/users

Notes#

API-only Rails apps do not include browser-oriented middleware like cookies and sessions by default. Add only the middleware and controller modules your API needs.

Sources#