🔍️ Appraisal2

if ci_badges.map(&:color).detect { it != "green"} ☝️ let me know, as I may have missed the discord notification.

if ci_badges.map(&:color).all? { it == "green"} 👇️ send money so I can do more of this. FLOSS maintenance is now my full-time job.

👣 How will this project approach the September 2025 hostile takeover of RubyGems? 🚑️

I've summarized my thoughts in [this blog post](https://dev.to/galtzo/hostile-takeover-of-rubygems-my-thoughts-5hlo).

🌻 Synopsis

Appraisal2 integrates with bundler and rake to test your library against different versions of dependencies in repeatable scenarios called "appraisals." Appraisal2 is designed to make it easy to check for regressions in your library without interfering with day-to-day development using Bundler.

Appraisal2 is a hard fork of the venerable appraisal gem, which thoughtbot maintained for many years. Many thanks to thoughtbot, and Joe Ferris, the original author!

Appraisal2 adds:

support for eval_gemfile
explicit generate, install, and update workflows, so CI can resolve already-generated appraisal gemfiles without rewriting them
generate-install and generate-update commands for workflows that need to regenerate appraisal gemfiles before resolving dependencies
named appraisal support for generate, generate-install, and generate-update
lifecycle hooks, including Appraisal.transform_gemfile, for plugins that need to normalize generated appraisal gemfiles before Appraisal2 writes them
support for caching gems across appraisals in CI workflows by setting BUNDLE_PATH in env
support for ORE as an alternative gem manager (faster than bundler!)
- For easy setup in Gitea Actions, Forgejo Actions, Codeberg Actions, or GitHub Actions check out appraisal-rb/setup-ruby-flash
support for Ruby 1.8, 1.9, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 (all removed, or planned-to-be, in thoughtbot's appraisal)
- NOTE: The setup-ruby GH Action only ships support for Ruby 2.3+, so older Rubies are no longer tested in CI. Compatibility is assumed thanks to enforcing the syntax for the oldest supported Ruby, which is Ruby v1.8. File a bug if you find something broken.
Support for JRuby 9.4+
Support for Truffle Ruby 22.3+
Support for MRI Ruby 4+
updated and improved documentation
many other fixes and improvements. See CHANGELOG for details.

💡 Info you can shake a stick at

Tokens to Remember
Works with JRuby
Works with Truffle Ruby
Works with MRI Ruby 4
Works with MRI Ruby 3
Works with MRI Ruby 2
Works with MRI Ruby 1
Support & Community
Source
Documentation
Compliance
Style
Maintainer 🎖️
`...` 💖	🧊 🐙 🛖 🧪

Compatibility

Compatible with MRI Ruby 1.8.7+, and concordant releases of JRuby, and TruffleRuby. CI workflows and Appraisals are generated for MRI Ruby 2.4+. This test floor is configured by ruby.test_minimum in .kettle-jem.yml and may be higher than the gem's runtime compatibility floor when legacy Rubies are not practical for the current toolchain.

🚚 Amazing test matrix was brought to you by	🔎 appraisal2 🔎 and the color 💚 green 💚
👟 Check it out!	✨ github.com/appraisal-rb/appraisal2 ✨

Federated DVCS

Find this repo on federated forges (Coming soon!)

| Federated [DVCS][💎d-in-dvcs] Repository | Status | Issues | PRs | Wiki | CI | Discussions | |-------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------|---------------------------|--------------------------|------------------------------| | 🧪 [appraisal-rb/appraisal2 on GitLab][📜src-gl] | The Truth | [💚][🤝gl-issues] | [💚][🤝gl-pulls] | [💚][📜gl-wiki] | 🐭 Tiny Matrix | ➖ | | 🧊 [appraisal-rb/appraisal2 on CodeBerg][📜src-cb] | An Ethical Mirror ([Donate][🤝cb-donate]) | [💚][🤝cb-issues] | [💚][🤝cb-pulls] | ➖ | ⭕️ No Matrix | ➖ | | 🐙 [appraisal-rb/appraisal2 on GitHub][📜src-gh] | Another Mirror | [💚][🤝gh-issues] | [💚][🤝gh-pulls] | [💚][📜gh-wiki] | 💯 Full Matrix | [💚][gh-discussions] | | 🎮️ [Discord Server][✉️discord-invite] | [![Live Chat on Discord][✉️discord-invite-img-ftb]][✉️discord-invite] | [Let's][✉️discord-invite] | [talk][✉️discord-invite] | [about][✉️discord-invite] | [this][✉️discord-invite] | [library!][✉️discord-invite] |

Enterprise Support

Available as part of the Tidelift Subscription.

Need enterprise-level guarantees?

The maintainers of this and thousands of other packages are working with Tidelift to deliver commercial support and maintenance for the open source packages you use to build your applications. Save time, reduce risk, and improve code health, while paying the maintainers of the exact packages you use. [![Get help from me on Tidelift][🏙️entsup-tidelift-img]][🏙️entsup-tidelift] - 💡Subscribe for support guarantees covering _all_ your FLOSS dependencies - 💡Tidelift is part of [Sonar][🏙️entsup-tidelift-sonar] - 💡Tidelift pays maintainers to maintain the software you depend on!
📊`@`Pointy Haired Boss: An [enterprise support][🏙️entsup-tidelift] subscription is "[never gonna let you down][🧮kloc]", and *supports* open source maintainers Alternatively: - [![Live Chat on Discord][✉️discord-invite-img-ftb]][✉️discord-invite] - [![Get help from me on Upwork][👨🏼‍🏫expsup-upwork-img]][👨🏼‍🏫expsup-upwork] - [![Get help from me on Codementor][👨🏼‍🏫expsup-codementor-img]][👨🏼‍🏫expsup-codementor]

✨ Installation

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

bundle add appraisal2

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

gem install appraisal2

⚙️ Configuration

Create an Appraisals file at the root of your project, then define one or more dependency scenarios:

appraise "rails-7" do
  gem "rails", "~> 7.0"
end

appraise "rails-8" do
  gem "rails", "~> 8.0"
end

Each appraisal starts from your root Gemfile, then applies the dependency changes declared in the matching appraise block. Generated appraisal gemfiles are written to gemfiles/*.gemfile.

Generated Gemfile Hooks

Appraisal2 3.1.0 adds lifecycle hooks for companion gems and local tooling. The primary hook is Appraisal.transform_gemfile, which receives generated gemfile content before Appraisal2 writes it.

Appraisal.transform_gemfile do |content, context|
  # context.appraisal is the Appraisal::Appraisal instance.
  # context.path is the generated gemfile path.
  content.gsub(%(source "https://rubygems.org"), %(source "https://gem.coop"))
end

Hooks run in memory. Appraisal2 writes the final transformed content once, after all registered transforms have run. A transform may accept only content, or it may accept content, context. Returning nil leaves the current content unchanged.

This is intended for plugin gems that need deterministic generated output, such as style normalization of appraisal gemfiles, without monkey-patching Appraisal2 internals.

🔧 Basic Usage

Once you've configured the appraisals you want to use, you need to install the dependencies for each appraisal:

$ bundle exec appraisal install

This resolves, installs, and locks dependencies for each generated appraisal gemfile using bundler. If an appraisal gemfile is missing, install generates that missing gemfile first, preserving the basic setup workflow.

When you intentionally want to regenerate every appraisal gemfile before installing dependencies, use:

$ bundle exec appraisal generate-install

Once you have your dependencies set up, you can run any command in a single appraisal:

$ bundle exec appraisal rails-3 rake test

This will run rake test using the dependencies configured for Rails 3. You can also run each appraisal in turn:

$ bundle exec appraisal rake test

If you want to use only the dependencies from your Gemfile, just run rake test as normal. This allows you to keep running with the latest versions of your dependencies in quick test runs, but keep running the tests in older versions to check for regressions.

In the case that you want to run all the appraisals by default when you run rake, you can override your default Rake task by putting this into your Rakefile:

if !ENV["APPRAISAL_INITIALIZED"] && ENV.fetch("CI", "false").casecmp("false") == 0
  task :default => :appraisal
end

(Appraisal2 sets APPRAISAL_INITIALIZED environment variable when it runs your process. We put a check here to ensure that appraisal rake command should run your real default task, which usually is your test task.)

Note that this may conflict with your CI setup if you decide to split the test into multiple processes by Appraisal2 and you are using rake to run tests by default.

Commands

appraisal clean                  # Remove all generated gemfiles and lockfiles from gemfiles folder
appraisal generate               # Generate a gemfile for each appraisal
appraisal generate-install       # Generate gemfiles, then resolve and install dependencies
appraisal generate-update [LIST_OF_GEMS] # Generate gemfiles, then update dependencies
appraisal help [COMMAND]         # Describe available commands or one specific command
appraisal install                # Resolve and install dependencies for each generated appraisal gemfile
appraisal list                   # List the names of the defined appraisals
appraisal update [LIST_OF_GEMS]  # Update dependencies for each generated appraisal gemfile
appraisal version                # Display the version and exit

Since Appraisal2 3.1.0, install and update do not rewrite existing appraisal gemfiles. They operate on the generated files already present under gemfiles/. This matters in CI and plugin workflows where generated gemfiles may be normalized by hooks or committed as stable inputs.

Use the command that matches the lifecycle you want:

Command	Regenerates appraisal gemfiles?	Resolves dependencies?	Typical use
`generate`	Yes	No	Refresh generated gemfiles after editing `Appraisals`
`install`	Only missing gemfiles	Yes, via install	CI or local setup using existing generated gemfiles
`update`	Only missing gemfiles	Yes, via update	Refresh lockfiles/dependencies using existing generated gemfiles
`generate-install`	Yes	Yes, via install	First setup, or after intentional Appraisals changes
`generate-update`	Yes	Yes, via update	Regenerate gemfiles, then update dependency locks

The deprecated rake task rake appraisal:install now delegates to appraisal generate-install, preserving its historical generate-and-install behavior while the CLI commands remain explicit.

Command Options

Built-in dependency commands support the following options:

Important: These options apply only to Appraisal's built-in dependency commands. They do not apply when running external commands like bundle install or bundle update.

Option	Description
`--gem-manager`, `-g`	Gem manager to use: `bundler` (default) or `ore`; applies to `install`, `update`, `generate-install`, and `generate-update`
`--jobs`, `-j`	Install gems in parallel using the given number of workers; applies to `install` and `generate-install`
`--retry`	Retry network and git requests that have failed; applies to `install` and `generate-install` (default: 1)
`--without`	A space-separated list of groups to skip during installation; applies to `install` and `generate-install`
`--full-index`	Run bundle install with the full-index argument; applies to `install` and `generate-install`
`--path`	Install gems in the specified directory; applies to `install` and `generate-install`

Using Commands with Named Appraisals

Using Appraisal's built-in commands with named appraisals

When using Appraisal's built-in commands with a specific appraisal name, place the appraisal name first, then the command, then any options:

# ✅ Correct order: appraisal <NAME> <COMMAND> [OPTIONS]
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 install --gem-manager=ore
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate-install --gem-manager=ore
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 update rails --gem-manager=ore
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate-update rails --gem-manager=ore
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 install --jobs=4

# ❌ Wrong order (won't work)
bundle exec appraisal install rails-7 --gem-manager=ore  # Wrong order

More examples with Appraisal's built-in commands:

# Install dependencies for a specific appraisal
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 install

# Regenerate and install dependencies for a specific appraisal
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate-install

# Install with options
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 install --gem-manager=ore --jobs=4

# Update all gems in a specific appraisal
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 update

# Update specific gems in a specific appraisal
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 update rails rack
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 update rails rack --gem-manager=ore

# Regenerate before updating a specific appraisal
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate-update
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 generate-update rails rack

Running external commands with named appraisals

For running external commands (like rake test, rspec, etc.) with a specific appraisal, the structure is the same: appraisal name first, then the command:

# Run any external command with a specific appraisal's dependencies
bundle exec appraisal <APPRAISAL_NAME> <COMMAND>

# Examples:
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 rake test
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 rspec
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 rubocop

# Note: External commands do NOT support appraisal options like --gem-manager
# This doesn't work and will fail:
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 bundle install --gem-manager=ore  # ❌ Wrong

Key difference:

bundle exec appraisal rails-7 install --gem-manager=ore ✅ → Uses Appraisal's install command with ORE
bundle exec appraisal rails-7 bundle install --gem-manager=ore ❌ → Tries to run external bundle command (which doesn't recognize --gem-manager)

🦷 FLOSS Funding

While appraisal-rb tools are free software and will always be, the project would benefit immensely from some funding. Raising a monthly budget of... "dollars" would make the project more sustainable.

We welcome both individual and corporate sponsors! We also offer a wide array of funding channels to account for your preferences. Currently, Open Collective is our preferred funding platform.

If you're working in a company that's making significant use of appraisal-rb tools we'd appreciate it if you suggest to your company to become a appraisal-rb sponsor.

You can support the development of appraisal-rb tools via GitHub Sponsors, Liberapay, PayPal, Open Collective and Tidelift.

📍 NOTE
If doing a sponsorship in the form of donation is problematic for your company from an accounting standpoint, we'd recommend the use of Tidelift, where you can get a support-like subscription instead.

Open Collective for Individuals

Support us with a monthly donation and help us continue our activities. [Become a backer]

NOTE: kettle-readme-backers updates this list every day, automatically.

No backers yet. Be the first!

Open Collective for Organizations

Become a sponsor and get your logo on our README on GitHub with a link to your site. [Become a sponsor]

NOTE: kettle-readme-backers updates this list every day, automatically.

No sponsors yet. Be the first!

Another way to support open-source

I’m driven by a passion to foster a thriving open-source community – a space where people can tackle complex problems, no matter how small. Revitalizing libraries that have fallen into disrepair, and building new libraries focused on solving real-world challenges, are my passions. I was recently affected by layoffs, and the tech jobs market is unwelcoming. I’m reaching out here because your support would significantly aid my efforts to provide for my family, and my farm (11 🐔 chickens, 2 🐶 dogs, 3 🐰 rabbits, 8 🐈‍ cats).

If you work at a company that uses my work, please encourage them to support me as a corporate sponsor. My work on gems you use might show up in bundle fund.

I’m developing a new library, floss_funding, designed to empower open-source developers like myself to get paid for the work we do, in a sustainable way. Please give it a look.

Floss-Funding.dev: 👉️ No network calls. 👉️ No tracking. 👉️ No oversight. 👉️ Minimal crypto hashing. 💡 Easily disabled nags

🔐 Security

See SECURITY.md.

🤝 Contributing

If you need some ideas of where to help, you could work on adding more code coverage, or if it is already 💯 (see below) check issues or PRs, or use the gem and think about how it could be better.

We so if you make changes, remember to update it.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more detailed instructions.

🚀 Release Instructions

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Code Coverage

Coverage service badges

[![Coverage Graph][🏀codecov-g]][🏀codecov] [![Coveralls Test Coverage][🏀coveralls-img]][🏀coveralls] [![QLTY Test Coverage][🏀qlty-covi]][🏀qlty-cov]

🪇 Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting with this project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists agrees to follow the .

🌈 Contributors

Made with contributors-img.

Also see GitLab Contributors: https://gitlab.com/appraisal-rb/appraisal2/-/graphs/main

⭐️ Star History

📌 Versioning

This library follows for its public API where practical. For most applications, prefer the Pessimistic Version Constraint with two digits of precision.

For example:

spec.add_dependency("appraisal2", "~> 3.0")

📌 Is "Platform Support" part of the public API? More details inside.

Dropping support for a platform can be a breaking change for affected users. If a release changes supported platforms, it should be called out clearly in the changelog and versioned with that impact in mind. To get a better understanding of how SemVer is intended to work over a project's lifetime, read this article from the creator of SemVer: - ["Major Version Numbers are Not Sacred"][📌major-versions-not-sacred]

See CHANGELOG.md for a list of releases.

📄 License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT .

© Copyright

See LICENSE.md for the official copyright notice.

- Copyright (c) 2010 Joe Ferris - Copyright (c) 2011 Dan Croak - Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Gabe Berke-Williams - Copyright (c) 2011 Joe Ferris - Copyright (c) 2011 Joseph Anthony Pasquale Holsten - Copyright (c) 2011 Nick Quaranto - Copyright (c) 2011 Prem Sichanugrist - Copyright (c) 2012 Gregory Ostermayr - Copyright (c) 2012 osheroff - Copyright (c) 2013 Jason Waldrip - Copyright (c) 2013 Marc Ignacio - Copyright (c) 2013 Phill Baker - Copyright (c) 2013-2016 Prem Sichanugrist - Copyright (c) 2013 sanemat - Copyright (c) 2014 Juan González - Copyright (c) 2014-2015 Prem Sichanugrist - Copyright (c) 2015 akihiro17 - Copyright (c) 2015 Elliot Winkler - Copyright (c) 2015 M.Shibuya - Copyright (c) 2015 Vlad Bokov - Copyright (c) 2016 Geoff Massanek - Copyright (c) 2016 Ian Fosbery - Copyright (c) 2016 Teo Ljungberg - Copyright (c) 2017 Brad Gessler - Copyright (c) 2017 Oli Peate - Copyright (c) 2017, 2025-2026 Peter H. Boling - Copyright (c) 2018 Antonis Berkakis - Copyright (c) 2018 Jared Beck - Copyright (c) 2018, 2020, 2023-2024 Nick Charlton - Copyright (c) 2020 Brian Hawley - Copyright (c) 2020 David Rodríguez - Copyright (c) 2020 James Ebentier - Copyright (c) 2021, 2024 Nicolas Rodriguez - Copyright (c) 2022 André Arko - Copyright (c) 2022 Joe Sharp - Copyright (c) 2023 aymeric-ledorze - Copyright (c) 2023 Kyle Fazzari - Copyright (c) 2024 Joe Sharp - Copyright (c) 2024 Sebastian Cohnen - Copyright (c) 2024 Yevhenii Ponomarenko

🤑 A request for help

Maintainers have teeth and need to pay their dentists. After getting laid off in an RIF in March, and encountering difficulty finding a new one, I began spending most of my time building open source tools. I'm hoping to be able to pay for my kids' health insurance this month, so if you value the work I am doing, I need your support. Please consider sponsoring me or the project.

To join the community or get help 👇️ Join the Discord.

To say "thanks!" ☝️ Join the Discord or 👇️ send money.

💌 💌 💌

Please give the project a star ⭐ ♥.

Many parts of this project are actively managed by a kettle-jem smart template utilizing StructuredMerge.org merge contracts.

Thanks for RTFM. ☺️

Field	Value
Package	appraisal2
Description	🔍️ Appraisal2 integrates with bundler and rake to test your library against different versions of dependencies in repeatable scenarios called "appraisals."
Homepage	https://github.com/appraisal-rb/appraisal2
Source	https://github.com/appraisal-rb/appraisal2/tree/v3.1.0
License	`MIT`
Funding	https://github.com/sponsors/pboling, https://issuehunt.io/u/pboling, https://ko-fi.com/pboling, https://liberapay.com/pboling/donate, https://opencollective.com/appraisal-rb, https://patreon.com/galtzo, https://polar.sh/pboling, https://thanks.dev/u/gh/pboling, https://tidelift.com/funding/github/rubygems/appraisal2, https://www.buymeacoffee.com/pboling