How to add ChatGPT streaming to your Ruby on Rails 7 app!

This guide will walk you through adding a ChatGPT-like messaging stream to your Ruby on Rails 7 app using ruby-openai, Rails 7, Hotwire, Turbostream, Sidekiq and Tailwind. All code included below!

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First, add the ruby-openai gem! Needs to be at least version 4. Add Sidekiq too.

# Gemfile
gem "ruby-openai", "~> 4.0.0"

# Simple, efficient background processing using Redis.
# https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq
gem "sidekiq", "~> 7.0.9"

Install Redis on your machine.

brew install redis

Add Redis and Sidekiq to your Procfile so they run when you run bin/dev.

# Procfile.dev
web: bin/rails server -p 3000
css: bin/rails tailwindcss:watch
sidekiq: bundle exec sidekiq -c 2
queue: redis-server

Add your secret OpenAI token to your .env file. Get one from OpenAI here.

OPENAI_ACCESS_TOKEN=abc123

Add the new routes:

# config/routes.rb
resources :chats, only: %i[create show] do
  resources :messages, only: %i[create]
end

Generate the migrations:

bin/rails generate migration CreateChats user:references
bin/rails generate migration CreateMessages chat:references role:integer content:string

Add the rest of the code, full example files below!

# Controllers.
app/controllers/chats_controller.rb
app/controllers/messages_controller.rb

# Sidekiq job to stream the data from the OpenAI API.
app/jobs/get_ai_response.rb

# Migrations
db/migrate/20230427131800_create_chats.rb
db/migrate/20230427131900_create_messages.rb

# Models
app/models/chat.rb
app/models/message.rb

# Views
app/views/chats/show.html.erb
app/views/messages/_form.html.erb
app/views/messages/_message.html.erb
app/views/messages/create.turbo_stream.erb