create-ruby-gem

Create Ruby gems with an interactive CLI wizard, which remembers your choices!
No more bundle gem flags look-ups 🙌

Table of Contents

• Supported Versions
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Interactive Wizard
• Preset System
• Compatibility Matrix
• Configuration
• CLI Reference
• Development
• Contributing
• Changelog
• Versioning
• License

Supported Versions

Ruby 3.2+ and Bundler 2.4+ are required.

Installation

gem install create-ruby-gem

Quick Start

create-ruby-gem my_awesome_gem

The wizard detects your Ruby and Bundler versions, walks you through every supported option, shows a summary of the bundle gem command it will run, and lets you edit or confirm before executing.

Interactive Wizard

Running create-ruby-gem <name> starts the step-by-step wizard:

1. Version detection — detects Ruby, RubyGems, and Bundler versions at runtime.
2. Option filtering — shows only options your Bundler version supports (see Compatibility Matrix).
3. Smart defaults — uses your last-used choices as defaults, falling back to Bundler's own settings.
4. Back-navigation — press Ctrl+B to revisit the previous step.
5. Summary — displays the exact bundle gem command with color-coded arguments.
6. Edit-again loop — choose "edit again" to change options, or "create" to execute.
7. Preset save prompt — after creation, optionally save your choices as a named preset.

Press Ctrl+C at any time to exit.

Preset System

Save, load, and manage option presets:

# Save options as a preset during gem creation
create-ruby-gem my_gem --save-preset oss-defaults

# Create a gem using a saved preset (non-interactive)
create-ruby-gem my_gem --preset oss-defaults

# List all saved presets
create-ruby-gem --list-presets

# Show a preset's options
create-ruby-gem --show-preset oss-defaults

# Delete a preset
create-ruby-gem --delete-preset oss-defaults

Compatibility Matrix

Options available depend on your Bundler version. The wizard automatically hides unsupported options.

Option	Bundler 2.4–2.x	Bundler 3.x	Bundler 4.x
--exe / --no-exe	✓	✓	✓
--coc / --no-coc	✓	✓	✓
--changelog / --no-changelog	—	✓	✓
--ext	c	c	c, go, rust
--git	✓	✓	✓
--github-username	✓	✓	✓
--mit / --no-mit	✓	✓	✓
--test	minitest, rspec, test-unit	minitest, rspec, test-unit	minitest, rspec, test-unit
--ci	circle, github, gitlab	circle, github, gitlab	circle, github, gitlab
--linter	—	rubocop, standard	rubocop, standard
--edit	✓	✓	✓
--bundle / --no-bundle	✓	✓	✓

Configuration

Config is stored at ~/.config/create-ruby-gem/config.yml (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/create-ruby-gem/config.yml).

The file contains:

• version — schema version (currently 1)
• last_used — the options from your most recent gem creation
• presets — named option sets saved via --save-preset or the post-creation prompt

CLI Reference

Flag	Description
<name>	Gem name (prompted interactively if omitted)
--preset NAME	Use a saved preset (non-interactive)
--save-preset NAME	Save the selected options as a preset
--list-presets	List all saved preset names
--show-preset NAME	Show a preset's options
--delete-preset NAME	Delete a saved preset
--dry-run	Print the bundle gem command without executing
--bundler-version VERSION	Override the detected Bundler version
--doctor	Print runtime versions and supported options
--version	Print the create-ruby-gem version

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run bundle exec rake to run the tests and linter. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt.

bundle exec rake          # tests + rubocop (default task)
bundle exec rake spec     # tests only
bundle exec rake yard     # generate YARD docs into doc/
exe/create-ruby-gem            # run the CLI locally

Contributing

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Make your changes and run tests (bundle exec rake)
4. Commit using Conventional Commits format (git commit -m 'feat: add some feature')
5. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
6. Create a new Pull Request

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed history of changes, following Keep a Changelog format.

Versioning

This project follows Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.

License

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