Edit Rails Credentials using VS Code

This is a quick guide showing you how to use VS Code to edit secrets in your Rails apps when you run rails credentials:edit. By default, Rails will use the $EDITOR environment variable, which is typically vi or nano; Luckily, It's easy to change, and I've included a handy script to streamline the process!

I use Rails credentials a lot! They're a handy, native alternative to storing environment variables in a .env file, and I've previously written about switching from environment variables to Rails credentials.

One small thing that annoys me though is the default editor. A lot of Ruby on Rails developers use VS Code, but rails credentials:edit will use the $EDITOR environment variable to edit your secrets. This is typically vi or nano, both of which can be a bit cumbersome.

To help, I wrote this short article. I'll show you how to use VS Code to edit your Rails credentials instead. I also share a handy script, bin/credentials:edit, which runs rails credentials:edit with a default editor exported. Let's go!

Use VS Code to edit Rails Credentials

To edit your Rails credentials using VS Code, you want this command —

EDITOR="code --wait" rails credentials:edit

"So Harrison", I hear you ask, "...what does this command do?"

Since rails credentials:edit looks at the $EDITOR variable, we set it to code --wait. This instructs our command to use VS Code to edit our secrets.

Note: If you leave off the --wait flag, VS Code will launch, but the credentials:edit command won't wait for you to make your edits, so editing your credentials won't work.

Then we run the actual rails credentials:edit command. Because we've exported the correct $EDITOR value, this command will launch VS Code, open the credentials file for you to edit, and wait until you save and close the file again. The rails credentials:edit command will hang until you've closed the file in VS Code.

If all goes well, VS Code should launch and let you edit your secrets, like so —

This is how I typically edit secrets in my Ruby on Rails apps. I rely on the history search function of my terminal (ctrl + r) to run the command; I'll start typing EDITOR, and hit enter on the suggestion for the full command, which works well enough.

Lately though, I've been experimenting with wrapping this command up as a little script, which I've shared below.

Note: Of course, you could also export code --wait as the default value for $EDITOR in your .bashrc or .zshrc. I prefer to use nano for most things, so the command above sets it inline.

Handy script with a default $EDITOR exported

Recently I've been adding this tiny script to my Ruby on Rails apps; It wraps the command from above and saves you having to search your terminal history to find it again.

Here's the script —

#!/bin/bash
# handy script to run `rails credentials:edit` with EDITOR exported.

export EDITOR="code --wait"

bin/rails credentials:edit $@

The $@ symbol in the script above is crucial!

Any arguments you pass the credentials:edit command come through in the $@ symbol. For instance, if you runbin/credentials:edit --environment=development to specify environment-level credentials, --environment=development will get passed through as $@, and the command will work as you'd expect.

You'll need to create the file and make it executable as well; The full commands for doing that are —

# 1. create the file
touch bin/credentials:edit

# 2. edit the file and add the script contents
nano bin/credentials:edit # use whatever editor you like

# 3. make the script executable
chmod +x bin/credentials:edit

# 4. run it!
bin/credentials:edit

Enjoy! You can change the name of the script to whatever you want, but I think bin/credentials:edit makes a lot of sense, since it mirrors the rails credentials:edit command.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this quick article helpful. I prefer using VS Code to edit my Rails credentials; I find it easier to copy and paste things around in VS Code compared to nano, and it's easier to get the correct YAML formatting.