Filepress

Filepress is a minimal Rails plugin that offers the best of both worlds for content management:

• Write and version control your content in Markdown (or a similar format)
• Sync it seamlessly to ActiveRecord models so you can harness the full power of a Rails backend.

Ideal for blogs, documentation, or any content-driven Rails app where you want the flexibility of flat files and the structure of a database.

1. Install the gem

Add it to your Gemfile:

gem "filepress"

Then run:

bundle install

2. Create a model to represent your content

Be sure to include a field that can serve as a unique identifier (e.g. slug):

rails g model Post title:string slug:string body:text

3. Enable Filepress for your model

Use the filepress method in your model class:

class Post < ApplicationRecord
    filepress
end

4. Add some content

Create Markdown files in app/content/posts. Each file should include frontmatter:

---
title: My First Post
slug: first
---

# Hello, this is my first post

5. Sync your content

Run the sync task to import your files into the database:

bin/rails filepress:sync

That’s it! You’re now free to query your content via ActiveRecord like any other model. Filepress doesn't dictate how you render the body—use a Markdown parser like Kramdown, Redcarpet, or similar.

Filepress reads your content files, extracts YAML frontmatter, and uses the values to populate or update model attributes. The rest of the file becomes the value of the body attribute (or another field, if configured).

You can customize how Filepress behaves by passing options to filepress:

class Post
    filepress from: "app/my_custom_content_folder"
end

class Post
    filepress glob: "*.html"
end

class Post
    filepress key: :name
end

class Post
    filepress body: :content
end

By default, Filepress deletes records when the corresponding file is removed. Disable this behavior with:

class Post
    filepress destroy_stale: false
end

Filepress is for you if:

• You prefer writing content in files
• You want the convenience of version control for content
• And you still want powerful querying, associations, validations and all the other Rails goodness