Mendix Ruby Bridge

Ruby DSL for describing Mendix application models: create projects from Ruby, import existing .mpr projects into a searchable Ruby inventory, plan and apply changes safely, and explore everything in an integrated web viewer.

Installation

Install the gem and its pinned mxcli tool:

gem install mendix-ruby-bridge
mendix-ruby setup

Quick start

model = MendixBridge.app("Customer Portal", version: "1.0") do
  modulo "CRM" do
    entity "Customer" do
      attribute "Name", :string, required: true
      attribute "Active", :boolean, default: true
      association "Customer_Orders",
        target: "Sales.Order",
        cardinality: :many
    end
  end
end

# Create a new Mendix project from a Ruby model
bin/mendix-ruby new examples/customer_app.rb --output ../customer-app --version 11.6.8

# Import an existing project into a Ruby inventory and explore it
bin/mendix-ruby import ../app/App.mpr --output ../ruby-inventory
bin/mendix-ruby serve ../ruby-inventory   # http://127.0.0.1:4567

# Preview and apply declarative changes with all safety checks
bin/mendix-ruby plan examples/sandbox_app.rb --inventory ../ruby-inventory
bin/mendix-apply examples/sandbox_app.rb --project ../app/App.mpr

Documentation

• Getting started — installation, creating a project from Ruby, and project configuration.
• Ruby DSL guide — entities, enumerations, microflows, pages, security, navigation, and compiling/applying models.
• Explicit migrations and rollback — destructive and security-sensitive changes (renames, drops, role changes) with backup and rollback.
• Git-controlled Mendix branches — guarded branch switching, stash, merge, and rebase with Mendix consistency checks.
• Import and the web viewer — importing existing projects, dependency queries, search/inspect, and the integrated viewer (domain explorer, ER diagram, page builder, Git panel, Marketplace).

Safety model

The declarative apply is additive and idempotent; destructive or migration-sensitive changes are reported as BLOCKED and belong in explicit migrations. The web viewer never writes the .mpr: visual edits are validated with mxcli check and stored as reviewable drafts, while real writes go through the guarded CLI/Git workflow with Studio Pro closed.

Development

bundle install
bundle exec rake test
bundle exec rake build

Tags matching the gem version, such as v0.1.0, run the complete test matrix, build the gem, and publish it as a GitHub Release.