rails new is the first command you run on any Rails project — and also the one with the most flags nobody quite remembers. --skip--this, --css=-that, and the list keeps shifting between versions: --skip-solid, --skip-kamal and --skip-thruster are Rails 8.0; --skip-rubocop, --skip-brakeman and --skip-ci arrived in 7.2; --skip-docker and --database=trilogy in 7.1.

So I built a small interactive builder: flip the toggles, pick a version, copy the command.

Open the rails new builder →

A few things it does:

  • Version-aware — the flags on offer change to match the Rails version you pick (7.0 → 8.1), so you never get --skip-solid on a 7.x app or bun on 7.0.
  • Shows what’s implied — flip on --api or --minimal and the options Rails quietly turns on for you (--skip-javascript, --skip-asset-pipeline, and so on, transitively) light up automatically — so you can see exactly what each meta-flag means.
  • Clean output — defaults such as --database=sqlite3, --javascript=importmap and the version’s asset pipeline are left out, so the command stays short.
  • Pinning — tick pin to get rails _8.0.5_ new myapp instead of plain rails new.
  • Presets — one click for API only, Minimal or No front-end.
  • Copy button — of course.

It’s a single static HTML file — no build step, no framework — so it loads instantly.

Or just try it right here:

That's it for this post, thanks for reading!