# Rails Tiptap autosave

> Use when Rails models need Tiptap rich text editing with debounced autosave.

Add Tiptap rich text editing with debounced autosave to Rails models using Stimulus. Stores markdown in text columns (not ActionText). Covers installation, Stimulus controller, shared partials, Turbo cache handling, and optional change tracking.

## Facts

- Type: Agent skill
- Discipline: Engineering
- Author: Obie Fernandez (https://github.com/obie)
- Upstream: https://github.com/obie/skills/blob/main/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/SKILL.md
- Source file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obie/skills/main/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/SKILL.md (6959 bytes, sha256:b680aa3417dfccb9fecaf8c099349363cc3b1c18d8d1f7ca10e669fb1af69c8d)
- Licence: MIT
- Upstream copy last changed: 2026-09-17
- Status: listed, not yet ruled on by the curator

## Use it

I want to use the Rails Tiptap autosave skill by Obie Fernandez.
This is what it does, in the author's own words: Add Tiptap rich text editing with debounced autosave to Rails models using Stimulus. Stores markdown in text columns (not ActionText). Covers installation, Stimulus controller, shared partials, Turbo cache handling, and optional change tracking.
Download the whole folder at https://github.com/obie/skills/tree/main/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave, SKILL.md and every file beside it, into your skills directory: ~/.claude/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/ for Claude Code, ~/.agents/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/ for Codex, ~/.cursor/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/ for Cursor. Get it from the author's repo, not from startupskills.dev.
Then tell me the path you installed it to and how to invoke it.

Nothing here is vendored: install from the author's repo, not from this site. A verbatim copy of the author's file follows for reading, under the licence reproduced after it; the current file is in the author's repo.

## Links

- Page: https://startupskills.dev/obie/rails-tiptap-autosave
- Author: https://startupskills.dev/obie
- Index: https://startupskills.dev/llms.txt

## The file itself

---
name: rails-tiptap-autosave
description: Add Tiptap rich text editing with debounced autosave to Rails models using Stimulus. Stores markdown in text columns (not ActionText). Covers installation, Stimulus controller, shared partials, Turbo cache handling, and optional change tracking.
---

# Rails Tiptap Autosave

Add rich text editing with automatic background saving to any Rails model using Tiptap, Stimulus, and markdown stored in plain text columns.

## When to Use This Skill

Invoke this skill when:
1. Adding rich text editing to Rails models without ActionText
2. Implementing inline autosave for text fields
3. Integrating Tiptap editor with Stimulus controllers
4. Building content editing UIs with formatting toolbars
5. Debugging Tiptap + Turbo cache conflicts

## Architecture Overview

**Key decision: Markdown in text columns, NOT ActionText.**

Why this approach:
- No extra tables or polymorphic attachments
- Content is plain text -- easy to query, diff, and version
- Markdown renders cleanly in non-browser contexts (emails, APIs, CLI)
- Simpler mental model than ActionText's rich text blobs

How it works:
1. Tiptap editor (initialized via Stimulus) converts user input to markdown
2. On every keystroke (debounced 1 second), PATCH to autosave endpoint
3. Controller saves markdown to a `text` column via `update_column`
4. Status indicator shows "Saving..." -> "Saved" -> fades

### Key Files

| File | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `app/javascript/controllers/rich_text_editor_controller.js` | Tiptap Stimulus controller |
| `app/views/shared/_rich_text_field.html.erb` | Reusable editor partial |
| `app/views/shared/_bubble_menu.html.erb` | Formatting toolbar |

## Core Patterns

### 1. Installation & Build Pipeline

npm packages, `@rails/request.js` for CSRF, JS bundler setup (Tiptap does NOT work with importmap), and editor CSS.

See: `references/installation.md`

### 2. Stimulus Controller

The full `rich_text_editor_controller.js` -- handles Tiptap initialization, debounced autosave, BubbleMenu target relocation, Turbo cache cleanup, and bubble menu formatting commands.

See: `references/stimulus-controller.md`

### 3. View Partials

Reusable `_rich_text_field.html.erb` and `_bubble_menu.html.erb` partials with Stimulus data attributes.

See: `references/partials.md`

### 4. Optional Audit Trail

Debounced change tracking that groups rapid edits into single audit events.

See: `references/audit-trail.md`

## Adding Rich Text to a Model

Quick step-by-step for any model (Article, Post, Page, etc.):

### Step 1: Add a text column

```ruby
class AddBodyToArticles < ActiveRecord::Migration[7.1]
  def change
    add_column :articles, :body, :text
  end
end
```

**Use `text`, NOT `string`.** The `string` type has a 255-character limit -- far too small for rich text content.

### Step 2: Add the autosave route

```ruby
# config/routes.rb
resources :articles do
  member do
    patch :autosave
  end
end
```

### Step 3: Add the autosave controller action

```ruby
class ArticlesController < ApplicationController
  before_action :set_article, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :autosave]

  AUTOSAVE_FIELDS = %w[body summary notes].freeze

  def autosave
    field = params[:field].to_s
    unless AUTOSAVE_FIELDS.include?(field)
      return render json: { error: "field not allowed" }, status: :bad_request
    end

    @article.update_column(field.to_sym, params[:value])
    render json: { status: "saved" }
  end
end
```

Key details:
- `update_column` bypasses validations and callbacks -- important for autosave performance
- Field whitelist prevents saving to arbitrary columns (security)
- Returns JSON (not HTML) since this is a background save
- `set_article` must include `:autosave` in the `only:` list

### Step 4: Render the shared partial in your view

```erb
<%= render "shared/rich_text_field",
    url: autosave_article_path(@article),
    field: "body",
    content: @article.body,
    placeholder: "Write your article...",
    label: "Body",
    subtitle: "-- supports markdown formatting" %>
```

## Common Pitfalls

1. **Wrong column type**: Must be `text`, not `string` (255 char limit will silently truncate content)
2. **Missing route**: `patch :autosave` member route must exist or you get 404s on save
3. **Missing before_action**: `set_article` (or equivalent) must include `:autosave` in its `only:` list
4. **Broadcast conflicts**: Never use `broadcasts_refreshes` on models with Tiptap -- Turbo morphing destroys editor state mid-edit. If you need real-time updates, scope broadcasts to exclude the editing user.
5. **ActionText confusion**: This pattern is NOT ActionText. Content is plain markdown in text columns. Do not add `has_rich_text` declarations.
6. **Importmap incompatibility**: Tiptap's packages are not ESM-compatible with importmap. You MUST use esbuild, vite, or another JS bundler. See `references/installation.md` for setup.
7. **BubbleMenu target relocation**: Tiptap's BubbleMenu extension moves the DOM element outside the Stimulus controller scope, making `this.bubbleMenuTarget` unreachable after initialization. The controller must save a reference before calling `new Editor()`. This is the #1 source of "target not found" errors. See `references/stimulus-controller.md`.
8. **Turbo cache stale editors**: Without proper `turbo:before-cache` handling, back-button navigation shows a broken editor that won't reinitialize. The controller must destroy the editor and restore the DOM before Turbo caches the page. See `references/stimulus-controller.md`.

## Multiple Rich Text Fields on One Page

Each field gets its own controller instance via its own `render` call. The `field` value tells the autosave endpoint which column to update:

```erb
<%= render "shared/rich_text_field",
    url: autosave_article_path(@article),
    field: "body",
    content: @article.body,
    placeholder: "Article body...",
    label: "Body" %>

<%= render "shared/rich_text_field",
    url: autosave_article_path(@article),
    field: "summary",
    content: @article.summary,
    placeholder: "Brief summary...",
    label: "Summary" %>
```

Each instance is fully independent -- separate editor, separate autosave, separate status indicator.

## Rendering Saved Markdown

Since content is stored as markdown, you need to render it to HTML for display. Common approaches:

```ruby
# Gemfile
gem "redcarpet"
# or
gem "commonmarker"
```

```ruby
# app/helpers/markdown_helper.rb
module MarkdownHelper
  def render_markdown(text)
    return "" if text.blank?

    renderer = Redcarpet::Render::HTML.new(hard_wrap: true, filter_html: true)
    markdown = Redcarpet::Markdown.new(renderer,
      autolink: true,
      tables: true,
      fenced_code_blocks: true,
      strikethrough: true
    )
    markdown.render(text).html_safe
  end
end
```

```erb
<%# In your show view %>
<div class="prose prose-sm max-w-none">
  <%= render_markdown(@article.body) %>
</div>
```

## Licence of the file above

The file above is https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obie/skills/main/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/SKILL.md, by Obie Fernandez, reproduced without changes.
- Source: https://github.com/obie/skills/blob/main/skills/rails-tiptap-autosave/SKILL.md
- Copyright: Copyright (c) 2026 Obie Fernandez
- Licence: MIT, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obie/skills/main/LICENSE

The repo's licence file, verbatim from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obie/skills/main/LICENSE:

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2026 Obie Fernandez

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.