WarpEngine

A mountable Rails engine that turns any Rails application into a retro software catalog: catalog models, a CI-pipeline-callable release updater, a public read-only JSON API, and optional ActiveAdmin resources that plug into your app's existing admin.

Repository: https://git.teletypegames.org/tools/warp_engine

Features

• Catalog domain: Software, Release, ReleaseAsset, ExternalLink, PlatformLink, Image, SoftwareImage, Download models with soft-delete semantics and download statistics.
• CI-callable updater: your build pipeline drops artifacts into a directory and calls one endpoint — WarpEngine extracts archives, parses metadata and upserts the catalog records. Supported platforms out of the box: TIC-80, Ebitengine, LÖVE, C64, Godot, Bevy, Phaser.
• Public JSON API: catalog listing, highlighted title, per-platform build matrix, image serving, download tracking, and a static file server for web-playable builds.
• Admin (optional): if the host runs ActiveAdmin, WarpEngine contributes ready-made resources — a catalog editor with nested release/asset forms, an image library with orphan cleanup, a file manager with a picker mode, and download statistics. Without ActiveAdmin the engine runs headless (API + updater only).

Requirements

• Rails >= 8.0
• A relational database (developed and tested against MySQL 8)
• Optional: ActiveAdmin + Devise in the host app for the admin UI

Installation

From the git repository:

# Gemfile
gem "warp_engine", git: "https://git.teletypegames.org/tools/warp_engine.git"

Or from the Forgejo rubygems registry (tagged releases):

source "https://git.teletypegames.org/api/packages/tools/rubygems" do
  gem "warp_engine"
end

Then:

rails g warp_engine:install   # initializer + create_warp_engine_tables migration
rails db:migrate

# config/routes.rb — keep it the last entry so your own routes win
mount WarpEngine::Engine => "/"

Configuration

# config/initializers/warp_engine.rb
Rails.application.config.to_prepare do
  WarpEngine.configure do |c|
    # Where CI drops build artifacts and where images are stored
    c.file_container_path  = ENV.fetch("FILE_CONTAINER_PATH", "/softwares")
    c.image_container_path = ENV.fetch("IMAGE_CONTAINER_PATH", "/images")

    # Shared secret for the /update endpoint.
    # nil => the endpoint rejects every request.
    c.update_secret = ENV["UPDATE_SECRET"]

    # If your app's own models reference catalog images, register them so the
    # admin Images page counts them as "in use":
    # c.image_owners = [
    #   {
    #     label: "member",
    #     image_ids: -> { Member.where.not(image_id: nil).distinct.pluck(:image_id) },
    #     usage_label: ->(image) { "member" if Member.where(image_id: image.id).exists? }
    #   }
    # ]
  end
end

The updater contract

Publishing a release from CI is two steps:

1. Upload build artifacts into file_container_path, named by convention: <name>-<version>.metadata.json, <name>-<version>.html.zip, <name>-<version>-win-x64.zip, <name>-<version>.tic, ... (each platform declares which asset kinds it expects — see GET /api/builds).

2. Call the endpoint:

   curl -H "X-Update-Secret: $UPDATE_SECRET" \
     "https://your-host/update?platform=tic80&name=mygame&version=1.2.0"
   

WarpEngine extracts the archives, parses the metadata (JSON, or the Lua comment header for TIC-80), and upserts the Software, ExternalLink, Release and ReleaseAsset records in a single transaction. Previously deleted records are resurrected on re-ingest.

Public API

Endpoint	Purpose
GET /api/software	Full catalog with releases, assets, links, download counts
GET /api/software/highlighted	The currently highlighted title
GET /api/builds	Expected asset kinds per platform (build matrix)
GET /api/softwares/:name/builds	Actual vs. missing build assets per release
GET /api/image/:id	Serves catalog images
GET /api/download?path=	Serves an artifact and logs a download record
GET /file/*path	Serves static build output (web-playable games, docs)

Admin integration

The host owns the single ActiveAdmin instance — authentication (Devise), theme, assets and the /admin routes. WarpEngine only appends its resource files to ActiveAdmin.application.load_paths. Two things to copy into a new host:

• the small file-picker JS for release-asset path inputs (an iframe pointing at /admin/files?picker=1&field=<dom_id>) in your active_admin.js;
• if you generate apipie docs, add "#{WarpEngine::Engine.root}/app/controllers/**/*.rb" to your api_controllers_matcher.

Behavioral notes

• Every model is soft-deleted (default_scope { where(deleted_at: nil) }).
• The JSON shape is stable and intentionally bug-compatible with the project's former Go backend (Go zero-time timestamps, camelCase keys, legacy flat path fields).
• Model extension points: ActiveSupport.on_load(:warp_engine_<model>) hooks.

Tests

The engine ships an RSpec suite running against a bundled dummy app:

bundle install
bundle exec rake app:db:prepare RAILS_ENV=test
bundle exec rspec

Development

This repository is a read-only split mirror — development happens in the tools/teletypegames monorepo under libs/ruby/warp_engine, and CI republishes the mirror on every change. Please do not open pull requests against the mirror.