Airesis - The Social Network for E-Democracy

The first open source web application for eDemocracy.

Airesis is a platform for participatory democracy that allows citizens, groups, and organizations to create proposals, discuss them in forums and blogs, organize events, and make collective decisions using the Schulze voting method.

Current version: 6.1.3 — Rails 8.1.3 · Ruby 3.4.4 · Tailwind v4 + DaisyUI 5 · Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus)

This is a fork of the original Airesis project by Alessandro Rodi (coorasse/airesis).

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Modernization changelog (v4 → v6)

This project underwent a comprehensive modernization starting from a legacy Rails 6.0 / Ruby 2.7 codebase. Below is a summary of every phase, so that new contributors can understand the current state and the decisions behind it.

Phase 1 — Working environment (v4 baseline)

• Fixed Dockerfile (Ruby 2.7.5, Node 18, Yarn, system dependencies)
• Updated docker-compose.yml to v3.8 format (PostgreSQL 14, Redis 7)
• Created config/application.yml for development
• Loaded database schema (133 tables), verified HTTP 200 response

Phase 2 — Rails upgrade (6.0 → 7.1)

Step	Upgrade	Key changes
1	Rails 6.0 → 6.1	paper_trail 10→14, bullet 6→8, bootsnap 1.4→1.23. Renamed default_role to avoid AR conflict.
2	Rails 6.1 → 7.0	devise 4→5, cancancan 3.1→3.6, rails_admin 2→3, simple_form 5.0→5.4. Zeitwerk exclusions for lib/rails_admin/.
3	Rails 7.0 → 7.1	load_defaults 7.1. Lazy I18n.t() in models. Added missing locale keys. Sprockets stubs for rails_admin.
4	Ruby 2.7.5 → 3.2.8	pg 1.2→1.6, paper_trail 14→17, added matrix gem. Updated debuggers and dev tools.
5	Sentry migration	Replaced sentry-raven with sentry-ruby + sentry-rails 6.5.

Phase 3 — Deprecated gems

Gem removed	Replaced with
Paperclip	Active Storage (has_one_attached) + active_storage_validations
coffee-rails	36 .coffee files converted to ES6+
Webpacker 5.x	jsbundling-rails + esbuild

Phase 4 — Frontend modernization

• Tailwind v4 + DaisyUI 5 installed as primary CSS framework
• All 500+ views converted from Slim/Foundation to ERB + Tailwind/DaisyUI classes
• slim-rails gem removed (zero .slim files remaining)
• Font Awesome 4.7 → 6.x (font-awesome-sass)
• Turbolinks removed, replaced by Turbo (Hotwire)
• Stimulus controllers: theme (dark/light), flash (toast), modal, countdown, infinite_scroll, toggle, autosubmit

Phase 4-R — Frontend remediation (legacy cleanup)

• Discovered that the layout did not load legacy Sprockets JS — 349 JS files and Foundation CSS were dead code
• Removed: 349 legacy JS files (57,892 LOC), 39 legacy CSS/SCSS files
• Gems disabled: foundation-rails, jquery-rails, private_pub, select2-rails, mustache-js-rails, uri-js-rails, uglifier
• Asset pipeline consolidated: Sprockets for images only, esbuild for JS, Tailwind for CSS

Phase 5 — Code quality

• User model refactored into 7 concerns: Authenticatable, Proposable, Groupable, Socializable, Forumable, Notificationable, Profileable (from 700+ lines to ~100 core lines)
• Test coverage: 32% → 80% (1498 examples, 0 failures)
  • Added request specs for 12+ controllers with zero coverage
  • Added model, helper, and mailer specs
  • SimpleCov minimum set to 80%

Phase 6 — Stack upgrade (7.1 → 8.1, Ruby 3.4)

Step	Upgrade	Key changes
1	Rails 7.1 → 7.2	enable_reloading config, positional enum syntax, removed check_pending!
2	Rails 7.2 → 8.1.3	Removed simple_token_authentication → has_secure_token (Rails native). render text: → render plain:, render nothing: → head :ok.
3	Ruby 3.2 → 3.4.4	Bundler 2.5.23. matrix gem still required.
4	Sidekiq + Redis → Solid Queue + Solid Cable	37 Sidekiq workers converted to ActiveJob. Redis service removed. DB-backed queues.

Phase 7 — Hotwire completion (v6.0.0)

• 136 .js.erb → 0: all converted to .turbo_stream.erb (109 templates)
• jQuery eliminated: jquery_shim.js removed, 45 views converted to vanilla JS
• rails-ujs removed: remote: true / method: → Turbo data attributes (85 files)
• Action Cable: Warden/Devise connection, real-time ProposalComment broadcasts
• private_pub (Faye) fully replaced by Action Cable + Turbo Streams

Version history

Version	Milestone
4.x	Original codebase (Rails 6.0, Ruby 2.7, jQuery, Foundation 5, Slim, Sidekiq)
5.0.0	Rails 8.1.3, Ruby 3.4.4, 80% test coverage, Solid Queue
6.0.0	Zero jQuery, zero .js.erb, 100% Hotwire, Action Cable, 7 Stimulus controllers
6.1.0	UI redesign: Trix theme, collapsible sidebar, auth pages, proposal/new, YARD docs
6.1.1	Security fixes (authorize! on move/resize), N+1 eliminated, atomic transactions, XSS sanitize, sidebar mobile gap fix
6.1.2	N+1 searches+proposals, authorize! on banner/test_banner, LIKE input limit, territory query in controller, raw t() removed
6.1.3	Security audit: CSP attivata, admin GET→POST (CSRF), path traversal stat.json, alert_id validation, rack-attack password reset throttle, SSRF/DoS avatar_url

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Stack

Component	Version
Ruby	3.4.4
Rails	8.1.3
PostgreSQL	17+
Job queue	Solid Queue (DB-backed, no Redis)
WebSocket	Action Cable + Solid Cable
CSS	Tailwind v4 + DaisyUI 5
JS bundler	esbuild (jsbundling-rails)
JS framework	Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus)
Auth	Devise 5 + OmniAuth
Authorization	CanCanCan 3
Voting	Schulze method (vote-schulze)
Search	pg_search
Pagination	Pagy
Forms	SimpleForm (DaisyUI wrapper)
Admin	rails_admin 3
Icons	Font Awesome 6 (font-awesome-sass)
Monitoring	Sentry (sentry-rails 6.5)

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Installation and Setup

Requirements

• PostgreSQL 17+ with hstore extension enabled
• Node.js 18+ and Yarn (for JS bundling)

Docker (recommended)

# First time setup
cp config/application.example.yml config/application.yml
docker compose up
docker compose run --rm airesis bundle exec rails db:create db:schema:load

# Day-to-day development
docker compose up

Services:

• airesis — Rails app (port 3000)
• db — PostgreSQL 17 (port 5433)
• solid_queue — background job worker

Useful commands

# Run migrations
docker compose run --rm airesis bundle exec rails db:migrate

# Compile assets
docker compose run --rm airesis bundle exec rails assets:precompile

# Run tests
docker compose run --rm -e RAILS_ENV=test airesis bundle exec rspec

# Run tests excluding system specs (no Selenium in container)
docker compose run --rm -e RAILS_ENV=test airesis bundle exec rspec --exclude-pattern "**/system/**/*_spec.rb"

Local installation

git clone https://github.com/hypnosdesign/Airesis.git
cd airesis
bundle install
cp config/application.example.yml config/application.yml
# Edit config/application.yml with your values
bundle exec rails db:setup
bundle exec rails s

In a separate terminal, start Solid Queue:

bundle exec rails solid_queue:start

Seeding test data

bundle exec rake airesis:seed:more:public_proposals[10]    # 10 fake proposals + users
bundle exec rake airesis:seed:more:votable_proposals[5]     # 5 proposals in voting phase
bundle exec rake airesis:seed:more:clear_proposals          # destroy all proposals

See spec/factories for additional factory definitions.

Environment variables

See config/application.example.yml for a detailed explanation. Managed via Figaro.

I18n

Translations are managed in a separate gem: airesis_i18n.

Authors

• Mattia Piano — current maintainer (fork, modernization v4 → v6)
• Alessandro Rodi (coorasse@gmail.com) — original author

License

AGPL — see LICENSE for details.