{"slug": "show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails", "title": "Show HN: Rails Agent – Build Autonomous AI Agents Natively in Ruby on Rails", "summary": "Rails Agent, a new fullstack framework for building autonomous AI agents natively in Ruby on Rails, was announced on Hacker News. The framework allows developers to build, test, deploy, and monitor agents using Rails skills without needing to understand LLMs, embeddings, or prompt engineering. It supports Rails 7+ and Ruby 3.2+, includes a hosted cloud runtime, and offers features like encrypted provider credentials, vector store, queue workers, and tracing. Pricing includes a transparent 5% service fee on metered managed infrastructure.", "body_md": "The fullstack framework for building agents in Rails. Build, test, deploy, and monitor in one platform.\n\nA Rails-native DSL, coding-agent docs, Playbooks, Connectors, Slack channels via Open-Wire, Packages from open registries, and the cloud to test, deploy, and monitor.\n\nWorks with Rails 7+ · Ruby 3.2+ · Cloud runtime included\n\nYou shouldn't have to become an AI engineer to add agentic features to your app. Rails Agent turns the Rails skills you already have into production-ready agents — one install, docs + Playbooks, one deploy.\n\nYou don't need to understand LLMs, embeddings, or prompt engineering. If you can write Rails, you can ship agents.\n\nFollow embedded Dashboard Docs and your external coding agent. Local app/agents/ files are the source of truth — scaffold blank or from a Playbook.\n\nAttach encrypted provider credentials per workspace and agent. Model spend bills your OpenAI, Anthropic, or other account directly.\n\nOne platform covers the whole lifecycle: draft, test, ship, and watch — no separate tools to wire up.\n\nHosted runtime, autoscaling, retries, and tracing are included. We handle the hard parts so you don't have to.\n\nEvery trace, log, error, and cost is searchable in /agents. One place to understand every run.\n\nEvery agent maps to a typed Ruby base class. Pick a type at create time or when cloning a Playbook — the scaffold includes metadata and the right gem base.\n\nKnowledge Agent\n\nEg: Answer “Where is order ORD-1001?” from your Rails database and support docs.\n\nRailsAgents::KnowledgeAgent\n\nWorkflow Agent\n\nEg: New order → update order info in Google Sheets and send an email notification.\n\nRailsAgents::WorkflowAgent\n\nNo vector database or Redis to provision. Attach provider keys under Settings → Providers. Rails Agent Cloud runs the production harness — model spend bills your provider; managed infra is pass-through at cost plus a transparent 5% service fee when metered.\n\nYour job is agent logic in app/agents/. We handle deploy, scale, traces, and monitoring.\n\nModels\n\nBYOK — attach OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or OpenRouter keys. Optional :auto fallback when configured.\n\nVector store\n\nEmbed and retrieve knowledge. No pgvector, no Pinecone.\n\nQueue & workers\n\nLong-running tools, streaming, retries — all handled.\n\nDeploys & scaling\n\nPush once, we autoscale. Rollbacks in one click.\n\nTraces & logs\n\nEvery run, every tool call, every token — searchable.\n\nPlatform keys\n\nrak_* API keys for cloud auth — distinct from provider BYOK.\n\nNo YAML soup. No hidden config. Every agent is one folder inside your existing Rails app — and you can read it top to bottom in a minute.\n\ngenerated by rails agent new support\n\n`app/agents/support/`\n\nOne directory per agent. Everything it needs lives inside it — nothing hidden in config, nothing scattered across the repo.\n\n`agent.rb`\n\nA plain Ruby class. Pick a model, write the instructions in English. That's the whole agent.\n\n`tools/`\n\nEach file is one action — look up an order, send an email, refund a charge. Just Ruby methods on your existing models.\n\n`connectors/`\n\nConnect Google Sheets, Notion, HubSpot, and 3,000+ apps — OAuth managed for you. Install from the dashboard Integrate tab.\n\n`memory.rb`\n\nPer-user, per-thread or per-org. We store it, back it up and expire it. You just say what to remember.\n\n`knowledge/`\n\nDrop in PDFs, markdown, or point at a database. We chunk, embed and retrieve — no vector DB to run.\n\n`evals/`\n\nExample conversations with the answers you expect. Every change runs through them before shipping.\n\n`prompt.md`\n\nThe system prompt in plain markdown. Edit it in the dashboard, commit it in git — same file, same source of truth.\n\nConnect Google Sheets, Notion, HubSpot, Slack, and thousands more — OAuth handled, tools ready for your agent. No custom integrations to build.\n\nFrom Build → Packages, search Skills.sh, Smithery, and Microsoft APM — then attach packages into the agent folder your Rails app already syncs.\n\nSkills.sh\n\nBrowse and attach skills from the Skills.sh registry into your agent.\n\nSmithery\n\nDiscover Smithery packages and wire tools into Build → Packages.\n\nMicrosoft APM\n\nInstall Microsoft APM packages alongside your Rails agent files.\n\nStart from a real Rails use case — support, sales, finance, ops, and more. Clone a playbook to scaffold agent.rb, prompt.md, and metadata, then customize in Overview.\n\nStep 1\n\nBrowse\n\nPick a playbook for your team\n\nStep 2\n\nGet It\n\nOpens signup with the playbook loaded\n\nStep 3\n\nCustomize\n\nAgent files land in app/agents/\n\nSlack, Teams, WhatsApp, web chat, email, Discord, Telegram, SMS, GitHub, Linear, cron, and HTTP — the same agent brain, delivered through OpenWire so you are not rebuilding OAuth and event plumbing for each surface.\n\nWeb chat\n\nBrowser chat + eve HTTP API\n\nSlack\n\nBranded bot in channels & DMs\n\nDiscord\n\nSlash commands & components\n\nMicrosoft Teams\n\nAdaptive Cards in Teams\n\nTelegram\n\nTelegram bot in one install\n\nTwilio (SMS + Voice)\n\nSMS and speech-transcribed calls\n\nGitHub\n\nPR reviews & issue triage\n\nLinear\n\nIssue delegation & Agent Sessions\n\nMeta Cloud / Chat SDK\n\nConnect a company mailbox\n\nFacebook Messenger\n\nMessenger via Chat SDK\n\nGoogle Chat\n\nGoogle Workspace Chat\n\nHTTP API\n\nJSON run endpoint\n\nCron / schedules\n\nScheduled agent runs\n\nAdd the gem, open `/agents`\n\n, follow docs or clone a Playbook. Four steps — no AI course required.\n\n\"Docs first, ship fast.\"\n\n— Rails Agent\n\nIn your Gemfile: gem \"rails-agent-stack\", github: \"Tiny-Bubble-Company/rails-agents\"\n\nbundle install, then bin/rails generate rails_agents:install. Mounts the engine and prepares credentials.\n\nbin/dev, then open /agents — like Sidekiq. Sign up, add a provider key, follow Dashboard Docs.\n\nBlank agent or Playbook clone scaffolds agent.rb, prompt.md, and metadata. Edit locally or with your coding agent.\n\nDurability, sandboxing, human-in-the-loop, and evals are built into the framework. Focus on building your agent.\n\nWorkflows survive crashes and restarts. Every step is checkpointed. Agents park when waiting, resume on the next message.\n\nReuse shared knowledge and skills across agents. Clone Playbooks into app/agents/ and customize in code or the dashboard.\n\nMonthly token budgets with admin alerts, plus policies for model access, prompt-injection detection, and sensitive-info redaction.\n\nConnect Slack and Teams via Open-Wire. Connect company mailboxes (Gmail/Outlook) on the Email channel for inbound and outbound.\n\nSearch Skills.sh, Smithery, and Microsoft APM from Build → Packages and attach skills into the agent folder.\n\nNew agents remember across conversations out of the box. Turn memory off per agent when you want each chat to start fresh.\n\nTools that need confirmation trigger approval gates. Sessions park until resolved, then resume seamlessly.\n\nDefine eval suites with scoring rubrics. Watch runs, tokens, and cost from Monitor — then tighten budgets when needed.\n\nRubyLLM and ActiveAgent are great libraries. But you still need AI knowledge, build the dashboard, and run the runtime yourself. Rails Agent ships the whole platform — no AI expertise required.\n\nSwipe to compare →\n\n| Feature | Rails Agentus | RubyLLM | ActiveAgent | DIY (LangChain + glue) |\n|---|---|---|---|---|\n| Setup | One gem, one CLI command | Wire clients manually | Wire mailer-style classes | Python + YAML + glue |\n| AI knowledge required | None — just Rails | You wire models & prompts | You wire models & prompts | Deep LLM & ops expertise |\n| Dashboard included | ✓ | — | — | — |\n| Playbooks + docs-first scaffold | ✓ | — | — | — |\n| Hosted runtime | Included, one-command deploy | Bring your own | Bring your own | You build & run it |\n| Traces, evals, monitoring | ✓ | — | — | Wire it yourself |\n| Budget + Guardrails | ✓ | — | — | DIY |\n| Memory & knowledge (RAG) | Built-in, on by default | Wire pgvector yourself | Wire it yourself | Wire it yourself |\n| Model neutral (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |\n| Human-in-the-loop approvals | ✓ | — | — | DIY |\n| Uses your Rails app as-is | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |\n| Time to first agent in prod | An afternoon | A week | A week | A month+ |\n\n$99 Launch or $179 Scale per company — 30-day trial. BYOK model spend stays with your providers. Enterprise is custom via enquiry.\n\nFor building and testing on the cloud sandbox.\n\nProduction harness — BYOK models. Add Budget & Guardrails when you need them.\n\nEverything in Launch, plus Budget & Guardrails included.\n\nNeed SSO, SLA, or custom terms? [Submit an Enterprise enquiry](/pricing#enterprise).\n\nAdd the gem, restart, open `/agents`\n\n. Follow Dashboard Docs or clone a Playbook. No AI course required.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails", "canonical_source": "https://rails-agent.com", "published_at": "2026-08-02 14:25:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-02 14:52:57.937414+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "developer-tools", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Rails Agent", "OpenAI", "Anthropic", "Google", "OpenRouter", "Smithery", "Microsoft APM"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-rails-agent-build-autonomous-ai-agents-natively-in-ruby-on-rails.jsonld"}}