Rust off Rails: the opinionated web stack for the AI era

A web framework that ships zero lines of code Rust off Rails is a set of Markdown files that tell coding agents how to build a full-stack Rust web app: one blessed stack, one layout, one way to do each thing. The convention lives in the prose. The agent writes the code. curl -fsSL https://rustoffrails.org/install.sh | sh or in Claude Code: /plugin marketplace add rust-off-rails/rustoffrails Read before you pipe: the install script · INSTALL.md Railboard: a live Kanban built by AI in 7 prompts 3:06 · Watch on YouTube 0 lines of framework code 60 Markdown files 2 databases, same code ~/code/bookshelf, claude An illustrated agent session: the /offrails:new command, the interview, the plan, the generated files and the tests passing on SQLite and Postgres. > /offrails:new bookshelf: people track and review books, with an API for a mobile app later ● Reading AGENTS.md → interview · doctrine · structure · stack · workflow ?

Accounts?

a) magic link (Recommended) b) email + password c) invite-only d) none › a ? Who owns data? a) each user (Recommended) b) teams c) shared › you decide ?

Frontend?

a) htmx (Recommended) b) inertia c) spa d) api › b ?

UI library?

a) React (Recommended) b) Svelte › b ? API for other programs? a) none b) REST + OpenAPI c) GraphQL d) both › b ◆ Plan: inertia + Svelte · API rest · Postgres in prod (SQLite locally) Book title, author, rating 1–5 · belongs to User Review body, stars 1–5 · belongs to Book API /api/v1/books, /api/v1/reviews · bearer tokens › yes + migration/src/m20261013_120000_create_books.rs + src/models/book.rs · src/controllers/books.rs + web/src/pages/Books/Index.svelte (+ 71 more) ✓ cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings ✓ pnpm --dir web typecheck · svelte-check ✓ cargo nextest run · SQLite · 142 passed ✓ cargo nextest run · Postgres 18 · 142 passed Definition of Done: green. Run bin/setup && bin/dev What it is A framework made of decisions, not code. Other frameworks ship a library. Rust off Rails gives your agent the judgment: every choice it would otherwise improvise, already made and written down. The founding rule All code is written by AI Every line of Rust, SQL, HTML, CSS, TypeScript and every Dockerfile is written by an agent. Humans write intent: specs in product/, answers in the interview, feedback in conversation.

Never code.

It's the rule the others rest on: boilerplate is free, conventions are enforced by the agent, and specs stay the source of truth.

Read §0.

Markdown is the framework Where a framework would ship a library, Off Rails ships a precise spec. The job queue, sessions and Inertia adapter are rendered into your app as code you own. Strong opinions, aimed at agents Crate choice, file layout, naming, errors, tests: decided once. The agent never debates the ORM. Inconsistency is the enemy, not imperfection. Batteries included Auth, jobs, email, caching, uploads, realtime, deploys: every layer has a guide and a recipe, so the agent never starts from a blank page.

Browse the guides. How it works Interview. Plan. Generate. Green.

The agent asks only what a human can answer, writes the answers down, and is done only when the compiler and the test suite on both databases agree. 01 Interview Product questions only, each with a recommended default. "Who can see this?" yes; "which ORM?"

never.

Say "you decide" and it takes the defaults. 02 Plan A compact plan (resources, pages, jobs, assumptions) written into product/ specs with acceptance criteria. The spec is the durable record; chat is not. 03 Generate Generator recipes, run by the agent: migration → model → failing tests → controller → views, one vertical slice at a time. 04 Green fmt, clippy, tests on SQLite and Postgres, every acceptance criterion traced to a test, coverage gates. Green or it didn't happen. Eight skills, one per job SkillWhat it does /offrails:newInterview → plan → app skeleton → planned features, green /offrails:featureSpec first, then code. With no argument: build what changed in product/ /offrails:scaffoldA full resource in the app's frontend mode /offrails:generateJobs, mailers, channels, authentication, models, migrations, tasks /offrails:checkThe Definition of Done: fmt, clippy, tests on SQLite and Postgres /offrails:doctorAudits the app against every convention in the docs /offrails:deployDeploy config and a verified image; confirms before anything outward-facing /offrails:upgradeMoves the app's vendored framework forward and migrates conventions How you'll use it You write intent. The agent writes everything else. 1Say what you want, or write it in product/features/*.md.

Plain English.

2The agent writes the spec, then the code: migrations, models, views, tests. 3Done means green on SQLite and Postgres, every acceptance criterion tested. Read the guide Dev tools See inside your app. Traces, a profiler, a local mailbox, a jobs dashboard and live presence, built in. Your agent reads the same data as JSON, so it can check its own work. Dev dashboard Traces Hot functions Mailbox Jobs Presence The dashboard costs about 1 µs per request in a release build, and is development only by default. Take the tour The deal What changes when typing is free. A library with hundreds of thousands of lines60 Markdown files A code generator binarygenerators/scaffold.md: a recipe the agent runs Convention over configurationConvention over deliberation: the agent never debates which crate to use Optimized for programmer happinessOptimized for agent correctness: compiler-checked everything Magic, to save keystrokesNo magic. Explicit code is cheap when you don't type it. The stack in one breath One crate per job. Substitutions are not taken at the table. Axum·Tokio·SeaORM SQLite locally, Postgres in production, same code·Askama·Tailwind·lettre·tracing·one binary, one Docker image FRONTEND_MODE, chosen once in the interview htmx default Askama templates, checked at compile time, plus htmx.

No Node.

For CRUD apps, dashboards, content sites (like this one). inertia React or Svelte pages with server-side routing and controllers, through a generated Inertia adapter. The pick when you want a JS UI. spa A separate single-page app plus a JSON API, for when the UI must be a standalone app. Types flow from Rust via ts-rs. api in progress No UI at all: a backend and a versioned API for mobile apps, partners and scripts. UI_LIBRARYreact (default) or svelte, for inertia, spa and htmx islands APInone, rest (OpenAPI + tokens), graphql or both: a public, versioned API, independent of the UI And in the database: a job queue, a cache and pub/sub. The database is the only infrastructure. Standing on giants The best of Rails and Phoenix, together. None of the good ideas here are new. We took the ones that aged best from two frameworks we love, gave each a Rust shape, and wrote them down for agents. From Ruby on Rails Convention over configuration, sharpened into convention over deliberation Generators: rails new and scaffold, as recipes the agent runs Active Record → models and migrations Rails 8 authentication: database-backed sessions, generated and owned Solid Queue, Cache and Cable: the database is the infrastructure, no Redis Turbo 8 page-refresh broadcasts → signals over SSE Action Mailer previews Kamal, /up and Docker by default bin/rails tasks → one app binary Credentials and env discipline From Elixir and Phoenix Oban: persistent jobs with states, unique jobs, cron, snooze Oban Web → the live /admin/jobs dashboard Swoosh's local mailbox → /dev/mailbox phx.gen.auth: magic links and the "check your mailbox" dev hint LiveDashboard → the /dev toolbox The pending-migrations page, with its "Run migrations" button Ecto's explicit data layer: changesets, no callbacks Channels, Presence and PubSub in progress Distributed nodes and "let it crash" supervision in progress And also htmx Inertia.js Tailwind shadcn-style owned components ts-rs end-to-end types Svelte Playwright Field tests Real apps, ported by agents.

Agents port well-loved open-source apps to Rust off Rails.

Every rough edge they hit goes back into the framework.

from Fizzy In progress fizzyer Fizzy's boards and cards, rebuilt in Rust by agents.

from FreeScout In progress A FreeScout port A shared-inbox help desk, built by agents on another machine.

from Uptime Kuma Built uptime-offrails 1530 of 1530 tests green on SQLite and Postgres.

Built with GPT-6 Luna Claude Sonnet 5.5 Meta's Muse Wonder 1 GLM 5.3 Flash via opencode The goal: small, cheap agents that get real work done too.

Read the field tests Get started Install the plugin. Describe the app. Watch. 1 With Claude Code (recommended) /plugin marketplace add rust-off-rails/rustoffrails /plugin install offrails@offrails Then, in an empty directory: /offrails:new bookshelf: people track the books they've read and review them The agent interviews you, confirms a plan, then builds. Skills also trigger on plain requests ("make me a new Rust web app…").

2 With Codex, Cursor, or any agent that reads AGENTS.md Read /path/to/rustoffrails/AGENTS.md and make me a new app called "bookshelf".

Generated apps carry AGENTS.md and a vendored .offrails/, so later sessions need no setup.

3 Then Describe features in plain language, or write them as specs in product/: Scaffold Book with title:string, author:string, published_on:date, rating:integer.

Users must be logged in to create books. The full walkthrough How you'll use it Read the docs Star on GitHub