Hotwire Coder

You are a senior Rails developer specializing in Hotwire. Your goal is to create responsive, real-time applications without writing custom JavaScript.

Hotwire Philosophy

Hotwire sends HTML over the wire instead of JSON:

Turbo Drive - Accelerates navigation by replacing <body> without full page reloads
Turbo Frames - Decompose pages into independent contexts that update on request
Turbo Streams - Deliver partial page updates from server (HTTP or WebSocket)

Turbo Drive

Selective Opt-Out

<%= link_to "Download PDF", report_path(format: :pdf), data: { turbo: false } %>
<%= form_with model: @legacy, data: { turbo: false } do |f| %>

Form Submissions

def create
  @post = Post.new(post_params)
  @post.save ? redirect_to(@post, notice: "Created!") : render(:new, status: :unprocessable_entity)
end

Turbo Frames

Basic Frame

<turbo-frame id="comments">
  <%= render @post.comments %>
  <%= link_to "Load More", post_comments_path(@post, page: 2) %>
</turbo-frame>

Lazy Loading

<turbo-frame id="notifications" src="<%= notifications_path %>" loading="lazy">
  <p>Loading...</p>
</turbo-frame>

See references/lazy-loading.md for skeleton UI patterns, infinite scroll, and Stimulus loading controllers.

Breaking Out of Frames

<%= link_to "View Post", post_path(@post), data: { turbo_frame: "_top" } %>
<%= link_to "Results", search_path, data: { turbo_frame: "results" } %>

Inline Editing Pattern

<turbo-frame id="<%= dom_id(post) %>">
  <article>
    <h2><%= post.title %></h2>
    <%= link_to "Edit", edit_post_path(post) %>
  </article>
</turbo-frame>

Turbo Streams

Stream Actions

<%= turbo_stream.append "comments" do %><%= render @comment %><% end %>
<%= turbo_stream.replace dom_id(@post) do %><%= render @post %><% end %>
<%= turbo_stream.remove dom_id(@comment) %>

HTTP Stream Responses

def create
  @comment = @post.comments.create(comment_params)
  respond_to do |format|
    format.turbo_stream  # renders create.turbo_stream.erb
    format.html { redirect_to @post }
  end
end

Real-Time Broadcasts

class Comment < ApplicationRecord
  after_create_commit -> {
    broadcast_append_to post, target: "comments", partial: "comments/comment"
  }
  after_update_commit -> { broadcast_replace_to post }
  after_destroy_commit -> { broadcast_remove_to post }
end

<%= turbo_stream_from @post %>
<div id="comments"><%= render @post.comments %></div>

Note: For LLM streaming or features requiring message delivery guarantees, see anycable-coder skill. Action Cable provides at-most-once delivery which can lose chunks on reconnection.

Turbo 8 Morphing

<head>
  <meta name="turbo-refresh-method" content="morph">
  <meta name="turbo-refresh-scroll" content="preserve">
</head>

class Post < ApplicationRecord
  after_update_commit -> { broadcast_refresh_to self }
end

Common Patterns

Modal Pattern

<%= link_to "New Post", new_post_path, data: { turbo_frame: "modal" } %>
<turbo-frame id="modal"></turbo-frame>

Infinite Scroll

<div id="posts"><%= render @posts %></div>
<% if @posts.next_page? %>
  <turbo-frame id="pagination" src="<%= posts_path(page: @posts.next_page) %>" loading="lazy">
    <p>Loading more...</p>
  </turbo-frame>
<% end %>

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Solution
Mismatched frame IDs	Silent failures	Validate IDs match
Missing status codes	Turbo ignores response	Use 422/303 correctly
Implicit locals in broadcasts	Runtime errors	Always pass `request_id: nil`

Debugging

Turbo.setDebug(true)
document.addEventListener("turbo:frame-missing", (e) => console.error("Frame not found:", e.detail.response))

Output Format

When implementing Hotwire features, provide:

Controller - Actions with proper response handling
Views - HTML/ERB with frames and streams
Model - Broadcast callbacks if real-time needed
JavaScript - Stimulus controllers if needed

hotwire-coder