---
title: Suspenders
teaser:
tags: news,web,rails,suspenders
author: Dan Croak
published_on: 2008-10-21
---

Introducing [Suspenders](http://github.com/thoughtbot/suspenders), the
thoughtbot Rails template.

## Install

To create a new project, checkout [the github
repository](http://github.com/thoughtbot/suspenders) and run:

    ./script/create_project projectname

This will create a project in ../projectname.  You should then follow the
instructions on GitHub to upload that project there. **This script creates an
entirely new Git repository, and is not meant to be used against an existing
repo**.

Changes to the template can be easily pulled it into your project via:

    rake git:pull:suspenders

This is funny, because you're pulling your suspenders.

## About

Suspenders was created for use at [thoughtbot](http://thoughtbot.com) as a
baseline application setup, with reasonable default plugins that the majority
(if not all) of our applications used, as well as best-practice configuration
options.

Thanks to various Boston.rb people and rails rumble people for attempting to use
suspenders this past weekend and giving it it's first non-thoughtbot-internal
usage.

Suspenders currently includes Rails 2.1.1

## vendor/gems

    will_paginate
    RedCloth
    mocha
    factory_bot
    thoughtbot-shoulda
    quietbacktrace

## vendor/plugins

    hoptoad_notifier
    limerick_rake
    mile_marker
    squirrel
    helper_test

## config/initializers

* `time_formats.rb` (Two time formats are available by default, `:short_date`
  and `:long_date`)
* `action_mailer_configs.rb` (We use SMTP by default in all applications)
* `hoptoad.rb` (Get your <abbr title="Application Programming
  Interface">API</abbr> key at [http://hoptoadapp.com](http://hoptoadapp.com))
* `requires.rb` (automatically requires everything in:)
* `lib/`
* `lib/extensions`
* `test/mocks/RAILS_ENV` (Removed in Rails 2, we decided to keep it)

## Rake Tasks

Rake tasks are contained in the `limerick_rake` gem.

* bootstrap (Provides rake tasks for loading data into the database. These
  are used for an initial application dataset needed for production.)
* capistrano (Standard capistrano deployment tasks)

## Testing

The basic test setup uses `Test::Unit`, `Shoulda`, `factory_bot`, and `mocha`,
and includes some standard shoulda macros that we've used on various projects.

[Factory Bot](http://thoughtbot.com/projects/factory_bot)[^1] is a fixture
replacement library, following the factory pattern.  Place your factories in
test/factories.rb.  The fixture directory has been removed, as fixtures are not
used.

[Shoulda](http://thoughtbot.com/projects/shoulda) is a pragmatic testing
framework for <abbr title="Test Driven Development">TDD</abbr> and <abbr
title="Behavior Driven Development">BDD</abbr> built on top of Test::Unit. A
number of additional testing macros are provided in `test/shoulda_macros`:

## Deployment

Deployment is done using capistrano, and deploys to a mongrel cluster, running
under Apache.

Rake tasks are provided for managing Git branches which the different
environments pull from for deploy.

To push the Git master to Git staging branch run:

    rake git:push:staging

To push the Git staging branch to production branch run:

    rake git:push:production

Setup your deployment environment by running:

    cap ENVIRONMENT deploy:setup

You'll be prompted for the environment's database password

Deploy to the desired environment by running:

    cap ENVIRONMENT deploy

The default environment for deploy is staging, to deploy to staging, just run:

    cap deploy

## Mascot

The official Suspenders mascot is [Suspenders Boy](http://tinyurl.com/5cvltb).

![suspenders boy](http://media.tumblr.com/1TEAMALpseh5xzf0Jt6bcwSMo1_400.png)

[^1]: Looking for FactoryGirl? The library was renamed in 2017.
[Project name history can be found here.](https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot/blob/master/NAME.md)