How to Build a Rails 5 API Only and Backbone Application

The article shows how Rails API was merged into Rails core for Rails 5 and how it supports API-only applications with lightweight controllers, a reduced middleware stack, and customized generators. It then uses a simple Backbone TODO app to demonstrate the backend setup, JSON responses, and frontend integration.

Reading notes

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• Rails API was moved into Rails core, and Rails 5 will include its capabilities.
• API-only Rails apps use lightweight controllers, a reduced middleware stack, and customized generators.
• The example builds a Rails API backend for a simple Backbone TODO app.
• To generate an API-only app on the edge branch, the article uses bundle exec railties/exe/rails new <parent-folder-path>/my_api_app --api --edge.
• The generated Gemfile removes asset and template-related dependencies and includes active_model_serializers.
• config/application.rb uses api_only to exclude middleware and controller modules not needed for API-only apps.
• ApplicationController inherits from ActionController::API.
• A Todo resource is generated with bin/rails g scaffold todo title completed:boolean order:integer.
• The scaffolded controller omits new and edit, and it responds in JSON only.
• The scaffold does not generate template files or an app/view folder.
• resources :todos creates only the routes needed for the API, excluding new and edit routes.
• The database should be migrated with bin/rake db:migrate.
• A serializer is generated with bin/rails g serializer todo title completed order.
• The API can be tested with curl, creating a todo and listing todos from http://localhost:3000/todos.
• The Backbone app is changed to point its todos collection to http://localhost:3000/todos instead of local storage.
• Cross-origin requests are enabled by uncommenting rack-cors in the Gemfile and configuring config/initializers/cors.rb.
• The example allows requests from localhost:9000 and accepts the listed HTTP methods.
• The frontend can then be served locally with ruby -run -e httpd . -p 9000.
• The article says the TODO items are then stored by the Rails API backend instead of browser local storage.
• It notes that serializer generation could be improved and mentions JBuilder as another serialization option.