What is Plutonium?

Plutonium is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) toolkit that extends Rails with powerful conventions, patterns, and tools to accelerate application development while maintaining flexibility and maintainability.

It acts as a higher-level abstraction on top of Rails, providing ready-to-use solutions for common application needs while preserving Rails' elegance.

Core Architecture

Rails-Native Design

Plutonium integrates seamlessly with Rails, extending its conventions rather than replacing them:

# Plutonium controllers inherit from your ApplicationController
class ResourceController < ApplicationController
  include Plutonium::Resource::Controller
end

# Plutonium controllers are Rails controllers
class ProductsController < ResourceController
  # Enhanced with resource capabilities
  def custom_action
    # Regular Rails code works just fine
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html
      format.json
    end
  end
end

Resource-Oriented Architecture

Resources are the building blocks of Plutonium applications:

class ProductDefinition < ResourceDefinition
  # Declarative field definitions
  field :name, as: :string
  field :description, as: :markdown
  field :price_cents, as: :money

  # Resource-level search
  search do |scope, query|
    scope.where("name LIKE ?", "%#{query}%")
  end

  # Business actions
  action :publish, interaction: PublishProduct
  action :archive, interaction: ArchiveProduct
end

Modular by Design

Plutonium's packaging system helps organize code into focused, reusable modules:

# Generate different types of packages
rails generate pu:pkg:portal admin
rails generate pu:pkg:package inventory

# Packages are isolated and focused
module AdminPortal
  class Engine < Rails::Engine
    include Plutonium::Portal::Engine
  end
end

AdminPortal::Engine.routes.draw do
  register_resource ::Product
end

Progressive Enhancement

Built on modern web technologies like Hotwire, delivering rich interactivity without sacrificing simplicity:

class PublishProduct < ResourceInteraction
  attribute :schedule_for, :datetime
  attribute :notify_users, :boolean

  def execute
    resource.publish!(schedule_for:)
    notify_users! if notify_users

    success(resource)
      .with_message("Product scheduled for publishing")
      .with_render_response(NotificationComponent.new)
  end
end

Use Cases

Business Applications

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

class InvoiceDefinition < ResourceDefinition
  # Rich field handling
  field :line_items, as: :nested, limit: 20
  field :attachments, as: :document, multiple: true

  # Business actions
  action :submit_for_approval, interaction: SubmitForApproval
  action :approve, interaction: ApproveInvoice
  action :reject, interaction: RejectInvoice

  # Workflow states
  scope :draft
  scope :pending_approval
  scope :approved
end

Multi-tenant SaaS

module CustomerPortal
  class Engine < Rails::Engine
    include Plutonium::Package::Engine
    # Automatic tenant isolation
    scope_to_entity Organization
  end
end

Administrative Systems

Back-office Applications

class OrderDefinition < ResourceDefinition
  # Advanced filtering
  filter :status, with: SelectFilter, choices: Order.statuses
  filter :created_at, with: DateRangeFilter

  # Bulk actions
  action :process_batch, interaction: ProcessPendingOrders
  action :export_to_csv, interaction: ExportOrders

  # Complex displays
  display :summary do |field|
    OrderSummaryComponent.new(field)
  end
end

Content Management

class ArticleDefinition < ResourceDefinition
  field :content, as: :markdown
  field :featured_image, as: :image

  # Publishing workflow
  action :publish, interaction: PublishArticle
  action :schedule, interaction: ScheduleArticle

  # Content organization
  scope :draft
  scope :published
  scope :scheduled
end

Key Benefits

Accelerated Development

• Pre-built components for common functionality
• Smart generators for boilerplate code
• Convention-based resource handling
• Integrated authentication and authorization

Maintainable Architecture

• Clear separation of concerns through packages
• Consistent patterns across the application
• Deep Rails integration
• Progressive enhancement

Enterprise Ready

• Flexible and robust access control
• Multi-tenancy support
• Extensible component system
• Mobile-friendly by default

Best For

IDEAL USE CASES

• Complex business applications
• Multi-tenant SaaS platforms
• Administrative systems
• Content management systems
• Resource management systems

MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST FIT

• Simple blogs or brochure sites
• Basic CRUD applications
• Pure API-only services

Prerequisites

• Ruby 3.2.2 or higher
• Rails 7.1 or higher
• Node.js and Yarn
• Basic understanding of Ruby on Rails