Rails authentication with email & password.

We have clearance, Clarence.

• #thoughtbot IRC channel on freenode
• documentation
• mailing list

Fork away and create a Github Issue.

Clearance is a Rails engine. It works with versions of Rails greater than 2.3.

Install it as a gem however you like to install gems. Gem Bundler example:

gem "clearance"

Make sure the development database exists and run the generator:

script/generate clearance

This:

• inserts Clearance::User into your User model
• inserts Clearance::Authentication into your ApplicationController
• inserts Clearance::Routes.draw(map) into your config.routes.rb
• created a migration that either creates a users table or adds only missing columns
• prints further instructions

As your app evolves, you want to know that authentication still works. thoughtbot’s opinion is that you should test its integration with your app using Cucumber.

Run the Cucumber generator (if you haven’t already) and Clearance’s feature generator:

script/generate cucumber
script/generate clearance_features

All of the files generated should be new with the exception of the features/support/paths.rb file. If you have not modified your paths.rb then you will be okay to replace it with this one. If you need to keep your paths.rb file then add these locations in your paths.rb manually:

def path_to(page_name)
  case page_name
   ...
  when /the sign up page/i
   new_user_path
  when /the sign in page/i
   new_session_path
  when /the password reset request page/i
   new_password_path
  ...
end

We have begun standardizing our forms using Formtastic. We highly recommend trying it. It will make your Rails view life more interesting.

Clearance has another generator to generate Formastic views:

script/generate clearance_views

Its implementation is designed so that other view styles can be generated if the community wants it. However, we haven’t needed them so you’ll have to write the patch and send it back if you want other styles (such as Haml).

Clearance was extracted out of Hoptoad. We merged the authentication code from two of thoughtbot’s clients’ Rails apps and have since used it each time we need authentication. The following people have improved the library. Thank you!

Dan Croak, Mike Burns, Jason Morrison, Joe Ferris, Eugene Bolshakov, Nick Quaranto, Josh Nichols, Mike Breen, Marcel Görner, Bence Nagy, Ben Mabey, Eloy Duran, Tim Pope, Mihai Anca, Mark Cornick, Shay Arnett, Joshua Clayton, Mustafa Ekim, Jon Yurek, Anuj Dutta, and Chad Pytel.