Setup & Configuration

Set up the admin AI copilot for any Ruby project. No Rails required.

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem "ask-ruby-harness"

Run:

bundle install

The gem loads in any Ruby process. The project root it serves (app_root) defaults to the current working directory; ask-rails-harness pins it to Rails.root for you.

The tool surface

Six tools ship with the gem:

Tool	What it does
QueryDatabase	Read-only SQL (non-SELECT rejected everywhere; SELECT-only in production)
ReadModel	Inspect an ActiveRecord model’s columns, associations, validations
ReadLog	Read log files with level/search filtering and rotation support
RunCommand	Run shell commands in the project root, gated by permission rules
SchemaGraph	Full schema introspection: models, tables, columns, associations
RunTests	Structured test results with failure reruns (rails test / rspec / rake test)

Generic file and search capabilities (read, grep, edit) are provided by the agent’s native tools — the harness focuses on what only an app-aware layer can give an agent.

Configuration

Ask::Ruby::Harness.configure do |config|
  config.default_model = ENV.fetch("ASK_DEFAULT_MODEL", "deepseek-v4-flash")
  config.max_turns = ENV.fetch("ASK_MAX_TURNS", 25).to_i
end

Environment permissions

Per-environment rules for agent tool access:

Ask::Ruby::Harness.configure do |config|
  config.environment :production do |env|
    env.mode = :read_only
    env.allowed_commands = [/^bundle /]
    env.denied_commands = [/rm/, /dropdb/]
  end

  config.environment :development do |env|
    env.mode = :full_access
  end
end

The environment is detected from RAILS_ENV, RACK_ENV, or APP_ENV (development by default). denied_commands takes precedence over allowed_commands; when both are unset, all commands are allowed.

Agent sessions

Ask::Ruby::Harness.discover_tools!
session = Ask::Ruby::Harness.agent_session

response = session.run("How many records does the API return?")

Custom tools

Drop tools in app/tools/ at the project root — any class subclassing Ask::Ruby::Harness::Tool is discovered and added to the session:

# app/tools/deploy_status.rb
class DeployStatus < Ask::Ruby::Harness::Tool
  description "Show the current deploy status"
  def execute
    { status: `git log -1 --oneline`.strip }
  end
end

Audit logging

Every tool call is recorded in the ask_audit_logs table (when it exists) and broadcast as the audit_log.ask_ruby_harness ActiveSupport notification. Sensitive params (passwords, tokens, keys) are redacted before logging.