If you want to use RSpec for a Rails project, you should use the rspec-rails (opens new window) gem, which can generate helpers and spec files for you automatically (for example, when you create models, resources or scaffolds using rails generate).

Add rspec-rails to both the :development and :test groups in the Gemfile:

group :development, :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 3.5'
end

Run bundle to install the dependencies.

Initialize it with:

rails generate rspec:install

This will create a spec/ folder for your tests, along with the following configuration files:

• .rspec contains default options for the command-line rspec tool
• spec/spec_helper.rb includes basic RSpec configuration options
• spec/rails_helper.rb adds further configuration options that are more specific to use RSpec and Rails together.

All these files are written with sensible defaults to get you started, but you can add features and change configurations to suit your needs as your test suite grows.

Remarks

RSpec is a test framework for Ruby or, as defined by the official documentation, RSpec is a Behaviour-Driven Development tool for Ruby programmers.

This topic covers the basic of using RSpec (opens new window) with Ruby on Rails. For specific information about RSpec, visit the RSpec topic (opens new window).