🧠 Ruby on Rails Learning Roadmap (Beginner to Advanced)

Welcome! This is a curated roadmap to learn Ruby on Rails from scratch using the official Rails Guides.
Whether you're a beginner or brushing up, follow this checklist to learn Rails step by step.

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📚 Why this roadmap?
I created it to help beginners stay focused, avoid overwhelm, and learn Rails the right way — using official, trusted resources.
You can fork this repo, and track your own progress too.

🌍 I also write about programming on my blog: codecurious.dev
Check it out for articles, tips, and beginner-friendly programming content.

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✅ Phase 1 – Foundation

• Getting Started with Rails | Build a blog app and learn the basics of MVC, routing, controllers, models, views, and forms.
• Routing from the Outside In | Learn how URLs map to controller actions. Master resources, custom routes, and nested routes.
• Action Controller Overview | Understand what happens inside a controller, how params work, filters (before_action), and rendering/redirecting.
• Action View Overview | Learn ERB templates, helpers, layouts, and partials for rendering HTML.
• Active Record Basics | Understand how Rails interacts with the database using models and ORM.

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🟡 Phase 2 – Data Modeling & Forms

• Active Record Migrations | Learn how to structure your database using migrations.
• Active Record Validations | Ensure data quality using built-in validations.
• Active Record Associations | Master has_many, belongs_to, has_one, and has_many :through.
• Form Helpers | Build forms that tie to models. Essential for creating/editing records.

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🔵 Phase 3 – Productivity & Power Tools

• Layouts and Rendering in Rails | Go deeper into layouts, partials, and rendering flow.
• Active Record Query Interface | Learn how to query your database using ActiveRecord (where, joins, includes, etc.)
• Action Mailer Basics | Send emails from your app.
• Active Job Basics | Learn how to run background jobs (email, long tasks, etc.).
• Working with JavaScript in Rails | Learn about Turbo, Stimulus, and UJS.

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🛡️ Phase 4 – Security, Performance & Testing

• Security Guide | Critical best practices to protect your app from common vulnerabilities.
• Active Support Core Extensions | Understand useful Ruby extensions added by Rails (.blank?, .present?, .try, etc.).
• Caching with Rails | Improve performance with fragment, page, and low-level caching.
• Testing Rails Applications | Learn built-in testing tools and test structure (models, controllers, etc.)

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🧠 Phase 5 – Advanced Topics

• Internationalization (i18n) | Make your app support multiple languages.
• Action Cable Overview (WebSockets) | Build real-time features using WebSockets.
• The Rails Command Line | Learn all the Rails CLI tools available (rails generate, rails db:migrate, etc.).
• Autoloading and Reloading Constants | Understand Zeitwerk and how Rails loads your code.

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🚀 How to Use This

✅ Fork this repo
✏️ Mark checkboxes as you learn
📢 Share your progress
👨‍💻 Explore extra resources at codecurious.dev

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📎 Useful Links

• 📖 Rails Guides – Official tutorials and documentation
• 📘 Rails API Docs – In-depth reference for all classes and methods
• 🧑‍🏫 codecurious.dev – My blog with Ruby, Rails, JavaScript & web development articles

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💬 Want to contribute?

Feel free to open a pull request to:

• Suggest learning resources
• Add links to beginner projects
• Improve formatting or structure

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⭐ Star this repo if it helped you.
📩 Share it with friends who are learning Rails!

Happy coding! 🚀