CHANGELOG - rails 8.1.0 documentation

`Rails` 8.1.0 (October 22, 2025)¶ ↑

Suggest bin/rails action_text:install from Action Dispatch error page

Sean Doyle
Remove deprecated STATS_DIRECTORIES.

Rafael Mendonça França
Remove deprecated bin/rake stats command.

Rafael Mendonça França
Remove deprecated rails/console/methods.rb file.

Rafael Mendonça França
Don't generate system tests by default.

Rails scaffold generator will no longer generate system tests by default. To enable this pass --system-tests=true or generate them with bin/rails generate system_test name_of_test.

Eileen M. Uchitelle
Optionally skip bundler-audit.

Skips adding the bin/bundler-audit & config/bundler-audit.yml if the gem is not installed when bin/rails app:update runs.

Passes an option to --skip-bundler-audit when new apps are generated & adds that same option to the --minimal generator flag.

Jill Klang
Show engine routes in /rails/info/routes as well.

Petrik de Heus
Exclude asset_path configuration from Kamal deploy.yml for API applications.

API applications don't serve assets, so the asset_path configuration in deploy.yml is not needed and can cause 404 errors on in-flight requests. The asset_path is now only included for regular Rails applications that serve assets.

Saiqul Haq
Reverted the incorrect default config.public_file_server.headers config.

If you created a new application using Rails 8.1.0.beta1, make sure to regenerate config/environments/production.rb, or to manually edit the config.public_file_server.headers configuration to just be:
```
# Cache assets for far-future expiry since they are all digest stamped.
config.public_file_server.headers = { "cache-control" => "public, max-age=#{1.year.to_i}" }
```
Jean Boussier
Add command rails credentials:fetch PATH to get the value of a credential from the credentials file.
```
$ bin/rails credentials:fetch kamal_registry.password
```
Matthew Nguyen, Jean Boussier
Generate static BCrypt password digests in fixtures instead of dynamic ERB expressions.

Previously, fixtures with password digest attributes used <%= BCrypt::Password.create("secret") %>, which regenerated the hash on each test run. Now generates a static hash with a comment showing how to recreate it.

Nate Smith, Cassia Scheffer
Broaden the .gitignore entry when adding a credentials key to ignore all key files.

Greg Molnar
Remove unnecessary ruby-version input from ruby/setup-ruby

TangRufus
Add --reset option to bin/setup which will call db:reset as part of the setup.

DHH
Add RuboCop cache restoration to RuboCop job in GitHub Actions workflow templates.

Lovro Bikić
Skip generating mailer-related files in authentication generator if the application does not use ActionMailer

Rami Massoud

Introduce bin/ci for running your tests, style checks, and security audits locally or in the cloud.

The specific steps are defined by a new DSL in config/ci.rb.

ActiveSupport::ContinuousIntegration.run do
  step "Setup", "bin/setup --skip-server"
  step "Style: Ruby", "bin/rubocop"
  step "Security: Gem audit", "bin/bundler-audit"
  step "Tests: Rails", "bin/rails test test:system"
end

Optionally use gh-signoff to set a green PR status - ready for merge.

Jeremy Daer, DHH

Generate session controller tests when running the authentication generator.

Jerome Dalbert
Add bin/bundler-audit and config/bundler-audit.yml for discovering and managing known security problems with app gems.

DHH
Rails no longer generates a bin/bundle binstub when creating new applications.

The bin/bundle binstub used to help activate the right version of bundler. This is no longer necessary as this mechanism is now part of Rubygem itself.

Edouard Chin
Add a SessionTestHelper module with sign_in_as(user) and sign_out test helpers when running rails g authentication. Simplifies authentication in integration tests.

Bijan Rahnema
Rate limit password resets in authentication generator

This helps mitigate abuse from attackers spamming the password reset form.

Chris Oliver
Update rails new --minimal option

Extend the --minimal flag to exclude recently added features: skip_brakeman, skip_ci, skip_docker, skip_kamal, skip_rubocop, skip_solid and skip_thruster.

eelcoj
Add application-name metadata to application layout

The following metatag will be added to app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
```
<meta name="application-name" content="Name of Rails Application">
```
Steve Polito
Use secret_key_base from ENV or credentials when present locally.

When ENV or Rails.application.credentials.secret_key_base is set for test or development, it is used for the Rails.config.secret_key_base, instead of generating a tmp/local_secret.txt file.

Petrik de Heus
Introduce RAILS_MASTER_KEY placeholder in generated ci.yml files

Steve Polito
Colorize the Rails console prompt even on non standard environments.

Lorenzo Zabot
Don't enable YJIT in development and test environments

Development and test environments tend to reload code and redefine methods (e.g. mocking), hence YJIT isn't generally faster in these environments.

Ali Ismayilov, Jean Boussier
Only include PermissionsPolicy::Middleware if policy is configured.

Petrik de Heus

Please check 8-0-stable for previous changes.

Rails 8.1.0 (October 22, 2025)¶ ↑

`Rails` 8.1.0 (October 22, 2025)¶ ↑