rails new my_saas
- ? tenancy
- ? authorization
- ? billing boundary
- ? service conventions
- ? public IDs
- ? frontend ownership
- ? jobs
- ? admin
- ? testing patterns
Every feature request is also an architecture prompt.
Rails for the agent era
Rails Baseline is a production-ready SaaS foundation with authentication, accounts, billing, authorization, entitlements, Hotwire, Tailwind, and Kamal — plus the working patterns and architectural context coding agents need to extend it consistently.
Founding release · $129 one-time Planned standard price · $179
Repository
rails-baseline/
├── AGENTS.md
├── ARCHITECTURE.md
├── starter.yml
├── docs/
│ ├── contracts/
│ ├── recipes/
│ └── vendor/
├── app/
├── config/
├── db/
└── test/
Before making a non-trivial change:
ARCHITECTURE.md
Task
Context found
01 / The expensive part moved
rails new
is easy.Codex, Claude, and Cursor can generate a Rails application from scratch in minutes.
That isn’t the expensive part anymore. A blank repository still gives the agent almost no local precedent for how your application is supposed to work.
How are records scoped?
Where do permissions live?
Is Stripe state also product access?
Does this interaction need Stimulus or React?
How is tenant context restored?
Where does “25 projects” live?
What does a system administrator mean?
What gets retried, and how?
Coding agents made scaffolding cheap. Architecture still isn’t.AI is very good at continuing strong patterns.
A new repository has no patterns to continue.
02 / Local precedent
rails new my_saas
Every feature request is also an architecture prompt.
existing patterns found
The feature request can mostly remain a feature request.
03 / More than boilerplate
Traditional Rails starter kits primarily answer: “What code can I avoid writing?” Rails Baseline also answers: “How should the code that comes next fit this application?”
Features you don’t have to build.
A codebase worth continuing.
Most starter kits optimize for how much code they include.Rails Baseline optimizes for how well the next 100,000 lines get written.
04 / Stable contracts
Entitlements.enabled?(
account: Current.account,
key: :advanced_exports
)
Can this account use exports? Ask Entitlements.
Limits.value(
account: Current.account,
key: :projects
)
How many projects may it create? Ask Limits.
authorize project
Can this user modify this project? Ask Pundit.
Current.account.projects.find_by!(
public_id: params[:id]
)
Scope the record before deciding permission.
Which Stripe object exists underneath all of that? Ordinary product code should not care.
Billing
Identity & access
05 / Pattern density
Rails Baseline provides strong local precedent for the architectural problems a SaaS application keeps encountering.
Search repository context…
follow an existing account-scoped lookup
follow the existing Pundit policy
use Entitlements
use Limits
follow a tenant-aware Solid Queue job
follow AuditEvent
follow the supported Pay pattern
use the React-island recipe
The goal isn’t maximum code. It’s enough high-quality precedent that the next feature has something local to imitate.
06 / Familiar by design
Rails Baseline does not hide Rails behind another framework. It looks familiar to an experienced Rails developer — and recognizable to coding agents already fluent in conventional Rails code.
Rails first. Hotwire first. React when you actually need React.
07 / Shipping in the founding release
A conventional Rails 8 SaaS foundation, with the operating context that keeps its conventions coherent as the application grows.
08 / Explicitly optional
Rails Baseline establishes how optional capabilities should join the architecture without forcing every application to carry them on day one.
A baseline, not a kitchen sink.
09 / Repository-native context
No proprietary Rails Baseline agent is required. The repository itself carries the architecture.
Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and other capable coding agents can consume the same local patterns and instructions.
Add CSV exports to projects.
Require advanced_exports
.
Run it asynchronously.
10 / Who it’s for
You know how to build these pieces. You just don’t need to make the same infrastructure decisions for every new product.
Your coding agent writes meaningful implementation. You want it extending a codebase instead of inventing one.
You want to start quickly without owning an opaque generated pile of abstractions afterward.
You want the next few days spent on the thing customers might pay for.
11 / Clear boundaries
Built by Rob Race
Rails Baseline is built by Rob Race, a long-time Rails developer, senior software engineer, SaaS builder, and author of Build a SaaS App in Rails 8 .
The architecture draws from patterns that survived actual applications, along with the places those applications accumulated complexity that a new baseline can avoid.
Founding license
Launching soon. One purchase, one opinionated Rails foundation, and the context to keep extending it.
Planned standard price: $179
Purchase terms
Rails Baseline provides immediate access to the complete source code, so purchases are generally non-refundable once access has been granted.
If Rails Baseline materially differs from what was described, you encounter a problem that prevents you from reasonably using it, or you were charged incorrectly, contact me within 14 days. I’ll work with you to resolve the issue, and if the problem is with Rails Baseline and can’t reasonably be resolved, I’ll issue a refund.
Refunds aren’t offered for change of mind, deciding not to use the product, or expecting functionality that wasn’t included in the product description.
12 / Questions
It includes the SaaS primitives you expect, but the emphasis is different. Rails Baseline gives humans and coding agents enough architecture and working precedent that new features can extend the codebase consistently.
You can. Code generation is no longer the expensive part. A blank repository still provides little local precedent for the dozens of architectural decisions a real SaaS application requires.
No. Rails Baseline is a conventional Rails application first. Its contracts, recipes, and explicit patterns are useful to humans too.
No. Rails views, Hotwire, Turbo, and Stimulus are the default. React is an optional island capability for interfaces with substantial client-side state.
Pay provides a conventional Rails billing integration for Stripe while Rails Baseline keeps product capabilities and limits as application-owned concepts. The repository also documents the supported Pay API.
No. It is deliberately a normal Rails application.
Yes. The architecture distinguishes foundational concepts from optional capabilities so the application can evolve without depending on a proprietary Baseline runtime.
The initial founding license is intended for products you own.
Rails Baseline
Start from a Rails application whose architecture, working patterns, and agent context already agree with each other.