# Gem dev workflow?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-dev-workflow/188623>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 14, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-dev-workflow/188623 "2010-05-14T22:54:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![elliottg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@elliottg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/elliottg)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-dev-workflow/188623/1 "2010-05-14T22:54:30Z")

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I am beginning development of my first Gem for a Rails app. I am  
curious what some best practices are regarding development workflow.

As the Gem will be Rails dependent, it seems as though it needs to be  
vendored so that I can easily run tests, write code and see changes  
during development instead of rebuilding and reinstalling the gem  
hundreds of times daily.

I was thinking that a good way to handle this would be to have the Gem  
structure live in the context of a “development only” Rails app, and  
that all files except the Gem files would be added to .gitignore.

But as I have yet to build a Rails dependent Gem, I don’t know what  
the preferred way to do this is.

How do you guys handle Gem dev workflow?

Thanks, Elliott G