Small Bets

Small Bets is an online community to support new and aspiring entrepreneurs. This repository contains the source code for the Small Bets web application, which is based on a modified version of Campfire, a Ruby on Rails chat application built by 37signals.

We modified Campfire extensively to serve the needs of the Small Bets community. We have a list of some of the major modifications, along with references to the source code. If you like any of our changes, feel free to incorporate them into your own Campfire instance.

If you would like to help us improve Small Bets, we pay bounties for pull requests that resolve our issues. If you find a bug or have a feature request, we would appreciate it if you post an issue. Thank you!

And if you're not part of the Small Bets community yet, we would love to welcome you onboard!

Running in development

Prerequisites

• Ruby 3.3.1 (check with ruby --version)
• Redis server
• SQLite3
• Node.js with npm (or bun) for Tailwind CSS builds

Setup

bin/setup

Start the app in development:

bin/dev

This starts both the Rails server and Vite dev server using Foreman (via Procfile.dev).

The bin/setup script installs Ruby gems and Node packages (via npm install), prepares the database, and configures the application. If you skip bin/setup, install frontend dependencies manually with npm install.

All CSS is managed through Vite. Tailwind processes styles from app/frontend/entrypoints/application.css, which is automatically rebuilt during development.

Running in production

Small Bets uses Kamal for deployment. A modern tool that provides zero-downtime deployments with Docker.

Prerequisites

• A Linux server (Ubuntu 20.04+ recommended)
• Docker installed on the server
• A domain name pointing to your server
• Docker Hub account (or another container registry)
• Kamal CLI installed locally (install via gem install kamal)

Initial Server Setup

1. Initialize Kamal (creates .kamal/secrets if missing):

   kamal init

2. Configure environment variables: Edit .kamal/secrets and add your production secrets, for example:

   # Registry
   KAMAL_REGISTRY_PASSWORD=your-docker-hub-password
   REGISTRY_USERNAME=your-docker-hub-username
   
   # Server + domain
   SERVER_IP=your-server-ip
   PROXY_HOST=your-domain.com
   
   # Application secrets (generate with: rails secret)
   SECRET_KEY_BASE=your-rails-secret-key
   RESEND_API_KEY=your-resend-api-key
   VIMEO_ACCESS_TOKEN=your-vimeo-api-key
   AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-aws-access-key
   AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-aws-secret-key
   AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
   VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY=your-vapid-public-key
   VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY=your-vapid-private-key
   WEBHOOK_SECRET=your-webhook-secret
   COOKIE_DOMAIN=your-domain.com
   
   # Optional features
   GUMROAD_ON=false

3. Initial deployment:

   kamal setup    # Sets up Docker, builds image, starts services

Subsequent Deployments

kamal deploy   # Zero-downtime deployment

Automated Deployments

This repository includes GitHub Actions for automatic deployment:

1. Set GitHub Secrets in your repository settings:

   • SSH_PRIVATE_KEY - SSH key for server access
   • SERVER_IP - Your production server IP
   • DOMAIN - Your domain name (PROXY_HOST)
   • DOCKER_USERNAME & DOCKER_PASSWORD - Docker Hub credentials
   • SECRET_KEY_BASE - Rails encryption key
   • RESEND_API_KEY - Email delivery service
   • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID & AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY - File storage
   • AWS_DEFAULT_REGION - AWS region (default: us-east-1)
   • VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY & VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY - Push notifications
   • WEBHOOK_SECRET - Webhook security
   • COOKIE_DOMAIN - Your domain for cookies
   • Optional: GUMROAD_ACCESS_TOKEN, GUMROAD_ON, GUMROAD_PRODUCT_IDS

2. Deploy automatically:

   • Push to master branch for automatic deployment
   • Or use "Deploy with Kamal" workflow for manual deployment

Alternative: Manual Docker Deployment

If you prefer not to use Kamal, you can deploy manually with Docker:

# Build and run
docker build -t smallbets/campfire .
docker run -p 3000:3000 \
  -e RAILS_ENV=production \
  -e SECRET_KEY_BASE=your-secret-key \
  -v /path/to/storage:/rails/storage \
  smallbets/campfire

Environment Variables Reference

Variable	Purpose	Required
SECRET_KEY_BASE	Rails encryption key	✅
RESEND_API_KEY	Email delivery via Resend	✅
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	File storage on AWS	✅
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	File storage on AWS	✅
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION	AWS region (us-east-1)	✅
VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY	Web push notifications	✅
VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY	Web push notifications	✅
WEBHOOK_SECRET	Webhook security	✅
COOKIE_DOMAIN	Session cookies domain	✅
VIMEO_ACCESS_TOKEN	Video downloads	⚠️
GUMROAD_ACCESS_TOKEN	Payment processing	⚠️
GUMROAD_ON	Enable Gumroad features	⚠️
GUMROAD_PRODUCT_IDS	Gumroad product IDs	⚠️

✅ = Required for production deployment
⚠️ = Optional