Quickstart

This guide takes you from nothing to a running dApp where users sign in with their Solana wallet — no passwords, no Rust, no separate frontend. You’ll use the solrengine meta-gem, which installs the whole stack at once.

Prerequisites: Ruby 3.2+, Rails 8, Node + Yarn, and a free Helius RPC key.

1. Create a Rails app

rails new my_solana_app --css=tailwind --javascript=esbuild
cd my_solana_app

2. Add SolRengine

# Gemfile
gem "solrengine"
gem "dotenv-rails", group: [:development, :test]

3. Install

bundle install
rails generate solrengine:install
rails db:prepare
yarn add @solrengine/wallet-utils @solana/kit @wallet-standard/app @solana/wallet-standard-features @rails/actioncable

The generator wires up the whole stack for you:

• A User model with wallet authentication (SIWS)
• A Token model with Jupiter metadata, and a Transfer model with confirmation tracking
• Multi-database SQLite (primary, cache, queue, cable) with Solid Queue, Solid Cache, and Solid Cable
• The wallet Stimulus controller from @solrengine/wallet-utils
• Tailwind sources for the gem views
• A .env template, bin/solana_monitor, and Procfile.dev entries
• The auth engine mounted at /auth (login, nonce, verify, logout)

4. Configure your RPC

The generator created a .env. Drop in your Helius key:

SOLANA_NETWORK=devnet
SOLANA_RPC_URL=https://devnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=YOUR_KEY
SOLANA_WS_URL=wss://devnet.helius-rpc.com/?api-key=YOUR_KEY
APP_DOMAIN=localhost

Start on devnet while you build — it’s free to transact against.

5. Run it

bin/dev

Visit localhost:3000/auth/login, connect Phantom (or any Wallet Standard wallet), sign the message, and you’re authenticated. That’s the full Sign In With Solana flow — challenge, signature, verify — with zero passwords.

6. Build your dashboard

After sign-in the app redirects to /dashboard (configurable). Wire it to the rest of the stack:

# config/routes.rb
root "dashboard#show"

# app/controllers/dashboard_controller.rb
class DashboardController < ApplicationController
  before_action :authenticate!

  def show
    @wallet       = current_user.wallet_address
    @portfolio    = Solrengine::Tokens::Portfolio.new(@wallet)
    @tokens       = @portfolio.tokens
    @transactions = @portfolio.recent_transactions
  end
end

current_user, logged_in?, and authenticate! are added to your ApplicationController by the generator.

What bin/dev runs

bin/dev starts five processes from Procfile.dev:

Process	What
web	Rails server (Puma)
js	esbuild watch
css	Tailwind watch
jobs	Solid Queue worker (transfer confirmations)
ws	Solana WebSocket monitor (real-time balance updates)

Next steps

• Auth — customize the sign-in flow, message, and session.
• Tokens — render the wallet portfolio with USD values.
• Transactions — let users send SOL with confirmation tracking.
• Realtime — push balance changes to the UI live.
• Programs — talk to any Anchor program from its IDL.