Rails Agent — fullstack AI agents for Ruby on Rails

Rails Agent

The most advanced agentic platform for Ruby on Rails.
Build Rails AI agents in your repo. Test, deploy, and monitor at /agents.

Docs MIT Ruby 3.2+ Rails 7+

AGENTS.md · Getting started · Coding agents · Cloud

About

Rails Agent is the fullstack Rails agent framework for production Ruby on Rails agents. Define instructions, tools, skills, packages, knowledge, channels, memory, and evals as files in your app — then use the mounted /agents dashboard to connect BYOK credentials, attach guardrails, ship channels, and observe cost.

If you are searching for a Rails AI agents stack, an ActiveAgent alternative, or a RubyLLM alternative, Rails Agent is built for the full lifecycle: author in Git, run in the cloud, integrate responses into your product.

Website: rails-agent.com

Why Rails Agent (vs RubyLLM & ActiveAgent)

Rails Agent is a better alternative to library-only LLM wrappers when you need agents that ship with your Rails app — not just chat completions.

Rails Agent RubyLLM ActiveAgent
Scope Fullstack agentic platform (build → deploy → monitor) LLM client / chat helpers Agent abstractions in Rails
Source of truth app/agents/ directories in your repo Application code calling the gem Ruby classes / generators
Dashboard Mounted /agents (test, deploy, traces, cost) — Limited / app-owned
BYOK credentials Cloud-managed references (credential: :company_openai) Env / config in app App-managed
Build surface Instructions, tools, connectors, channels, skills, packages, knowledge, memory, guardrails Prompts + API calls Tools / prompts (varies)
Playbooks & Library Workspace reuse + proven scaffolds — —
Channels Open-Wire Slack / Teams, web, cron, API — App-wired
Ops Budget, guardrails, evals, Monitor Caller responsibility Caller responsibility
Best for Production Rails AI agents end-to-end Thin LLM access Lightweight agent objects

Positioning in one line: most advanced agentic platform for Ruby on Rails — git-native agents with cloud runtime, integrations, and production controls.

Features

Build (agent tabs)

Capability What you get
Instructions prompt.md system prompt — reviewed in Git
Tools Ruby methods over your ActiveRecord models
Connectors OAuth SaaS (Sheets, Notion, HubSpot, …) from the dashboard
Channels Slack & Microsoft Teams via Open-Wire, web chat, cron, API
Skills Composable multi-step behaviors
Packages Install from Skills.sh / Microsoft APM / Smithery
Knowledge Docs + database grounding for RAG-style answers
Memory Conversation memory (Mem0-backed), on by default
Guardrails Budget, model access, prompt injection, sensitive info

Platform

  • Playbooks — proven scaffolds (instructions + tools + skills) you customize locally
  • Library — share tools, skills, packages, knowledge, and connectors across agents (app/agents_library/ + imports.yml)
  • Budget — per-agent / policy spend limits alongside usage monitoring
  • Monitor — runs, traces, evals, and cost in /agents
  • BYOK — attach OpenAI, Anthropic, and other provider keys in cloud; reference them in Ruby with no secrets in Git
  • Open-Wire — Slack and Teams channel transport over open-wire/1
  • Composio email — email connectors for inbox workflows
  • Evals — golden cases under evals/ before deploy
  • Deploy — rails-agents sync → deploy → production traffic
  • Coding-agent docs — Cursor, Codex, and Claude Code follow AGENTS.md and Coding agents

Install

# Gemfile
gem "rails-agent-stack", github: "Tiny-Bubble-Company/rails-agents"

bundle install
bin/rails generate rails_agents:install
bin/dev   # → http://localhost:3000/agents

Connect your company workspace at /agents, then scaffold a database Knowledge agent:

bin/rails generate rails_agents:agent store_assistant --type knowledge --database

Zeitwerk: fresh installs add config/initializers/rails_agents_autoload.rb so app/agents/ and app/agents_library/ are agent assets, not application namespaces.

External coding agents (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex): start with docs/AGENTS.md.

Quick start

bundle exec rails-agents run store_assistant "Where is order ORD-DEMO-1001?"
bundle exec rails-agents sync store_assistant
bundle exec rails-agents deploy store_assistant
bundle exec rails-agents logs store_assistant

class StoreAssistant < RailsAgents::KnowledgeAgent
  model :gpt_5_mini, provider: :openai, credential: :company_openai
  memory :conversation, provider: :mem0, recall: 5
  knowledge_from "knowledge/**/*"

  tool :lookup_order do |order_number:|
    Order.find_by(number: order_number)&.as_json(only: %i[number status total_cents])
  end
end

:company_openai is a cloud credential reference — not a local env var. Enable managed memory from Build → Memory. Pass a stable session_id to .run so recall stays scoped per product user.

Agent directory

app/agents/store_assistant/
├── agent.rb            # RailsAgents::KnowledgeAgent subclass
├── prompt.md           # System prompt
├── imports.yml         # Optional workspace Library attachments
├── tools/              # Optional extracted tools
├── skills/             # Composable behaviors
├── packages/           # Registry-installed capabilities
├── memory.rb           # Memory config
├── knowledge/          # RAG files
├── connectors/         # External connection manifests
├── channels/           # Slack, Teams, web, API, …
└── evals/              # Smoke / regression cases

app/agents_library/
├── tools/
├── skills/
├── packages/
├── knowledge/
└── connectors/

Keep one-off work inside the agent. Move stable capabilities to app/agents_library/ when another agent should reuse them, then reference via imports.yml. rails-agents sync includes imported Library files in the runtime bundle without duplicating shared source in Git.

Agent taxonomy

Type Main purpose Example
Knowledge Understand and answer Order support from Rails data
Workflow Execute predictable processes Refund approval
Operations Coordinate unpredictable real-world work Incident coordination
Monitoring Observe changes and respond Inventory watcher

Generator: --type knowledge|workflow|operations|monitoring and --database for DB-connected Knowledge scaffolds.

Integrate responses: every run returns output_text (Markdown), optional output_data, and typed items — same shape for every LLM. Guide: rails-agent.com/docs/run-response.

Configuration

# config/initializers/rails_agents.rb
RailsAgents.configure do |config|
  config.api_key = ENV["RAILS_AGENTS_API_KEY"]       # platform key
  config.project_id = ENV["RAILS_AGENTS_PROJECT_ID"]
end

Provider keys live in the cloud dashboard → Model credentials (BYOK). Never commit them.

Pricing

| | | |--|--| | Subscription | Fixed company plan (production workspaces) | | Usage | Provider + infrastructure at pass-through cost | | Service fee | 1% on metered usage (transparent line item) |

Details: rails-agent.com/pricing

Development

bundle install
bundle exec rspec

Local path testing: sibling app rails-agents-boilerplate.

License

MIT — MIT-LICENSE

rails-agent.com · AGENTS.md · Getting started