IronAdmin

Convention-over-configuration admin panel engine for Ruby on Rails. Build beautiful admin interfaces with minimal code.

• Zero Configuration CRUD - Auto-generates forms and tables from your database schema
• Resource DSL - Customize fields, filters, scopes, and actions with a clean Ruby DSL
• Dashboard Builder - Create metrics, charts, and recent records widgets
• Theme System - Fully customizable Tailwind CSS classes for every UI element
• Authorization - Built-in policy system for fine-grained access control
• Search - Global search across all resources
• Export - CSV and JSON export out of the box

• Ruby >= 3.2
• Rails >= 7.1
• tailwindcss-rails >= 4.0

Add to your Gemfile:

gem "iron_admin"
gem "tailwindcss-rails"

Then run:

bundle install
rails generate iron_admin:install

The install generator will:

• Create app/iron_admin/resources/ and app/iron_admin/dashboards/ directories
• Add a configuration initializer at config/initializers/iron_admin.rb
• Create a sample dashboard
• Mount the engine at /admin in your routes
• Add the IronAdmin Tailwind CSS import to your app/assets/tailwind/application.css

IronAdmin uses Tailwind CSS v4 for all styling. The tailwindcss-rails gem handles compilation. After running the install generator, your app/assets/tailwind/application.css should include:

@import "tailwindcss";
@import "../builds/tailwind/iron_admin";

The second line imports IronAdmin's @source directives so the Tailwind compiler scans the engine's views and components for CSS classes. Without it, the admin panel will render unstyled.

If you're setting up manually (without the generator), run:

rails tailwindcss:build

Then verify that app/assets/builds/tailwind/iron_admin.css was created. If not, check that tailwindcss-rails >= 4.0 is installed and that the engine gem is properly loaded.

For development, use bin/dev or rails tailwindcss:watch to recompile CSS on changes.

# config/initializers/iron_admin.rb
IronAdmin.configure do |config|
  config.title = "My App Admin"

  config.authenticate do |controller|
    user = User.find_by(id: controller.session[:user_id])
    controller.redirect_to "/login" unless user&.admin?
  end

  config.current_user do |controller|
    User.find_by(id: controller.session[:user_id])
  end
end

rails generate iron_admin:resource User
rails generate iron_admin:resource Product
rails generate iron_admin:resource Order

# app/iron_admin/resources/user_resource.rb
module IronAdmin
  module Resources
    class UserResource < IronAdmin::Resource
      field :role, type: :badge, colors: { admin: :purple, user: :blue }
      field :email, type: :text

      searchable :name, :email

      filter :role, type: :select, choices: User.roles.keys
      filter :created_at, type: :date_range

      scope :admins, -> { where(role: :admin) }
      scope :recent, -> { where("created_at > ?", 7.days.ago) }

      index_fields :id, :name, :email, :role, :created_at
      form_fields :name, :email, :role

      menu priority: 1, icon: "users", group: "People"

      action :lock, icon: "lock-closed", confirm: true do |record|
        record.update!(locked_at: Time.current)
      end
    end
  end
end

# app/iron_admin/dashboards/admin_dashboard.rb
module IronAdmin
  module Dashboards
    class AdminDashboard < IronAdmin::Dashboard
      metric :total_users, format: :number do
        User.count
      end

      metric :monthly_revenue, format: :currency do
        Payment.where("created_at > ?", 30.days.ago).sum(:amount)
      end

      recent :users, limit: 5, scope: -> { order(created_at: :desc) }
      recent :payments, limit: 5
    end
  end
end

Visit /admin and your admin panel is ready!

Full documentation is available in the docs directory:

• Installation
• Quick Start
• Resources Guide
• Dashboard Guide
• Theming Guide
• Configuration Reference

After checking out the repo:

bundle install
bundle exec rspec
bundle exec rubocop

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

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