Strates

A web app to create and share Crystal code snippets.

A strate is one saved snippet — a name, some Crystal source, and a target Crystal version — addressed by an 8-character slug. Snippets are immutable(for now) and saving creates a new row that records its ancestor in forked_from, so history accumulates in layers. The editor supports syntax highlighting, line numbers, and basic editing features. Snippets can be shared by URL, forked, and saved as new.

This app is inspired by Ellie, Ellies Catalog and Godbolt's Compiler Explorer.

Status: Still work-in-progress. The editor, sharing, forking, and save-as-new all work. Running snippets is not implemented yet, hence why the Run button is deliberately disabled.

Stack

Language	Crystal >= 1.20.0, < 2.0
Framework	Amber 2.0.0-beta.4 (CLI 2.0.5)
ORM	Grant
Database	SQLite (WAL mode), migrated with Micrate
Editor	CodeMirror 6, bundled with esbuild
CSS	Oat plus project styles

Requirements

• Crystal >= 1.20
• SQLite >= 3.24.0 — Grant enforces this at connection time (ON CONFLICT support)
• Node >= 20 (build-time only; not needed at runtime)

Setup

shards install
npm ci
npm run build:js        # bundles CodeMirror -> app/assets/javascript/vendor/editor.js
amber assets build      # fingerprints app/assets -> public/assets + manifest.json
amber database migrate

Order matters. npm run build:js must run before amber assets build. Both app/assets/javascript/vendor/editor.js and public/assets/ are gitignored build artifacts, so a fresh clone has neither. Amber's asset resolver is strict by design — a missing manifest entry is a hard failure at build time, not a silent 404 in the browser.

Development

amber watch

Serves http://127.0.0.1:3000. The watch block in .amber.yml runs npm run build:js before each Crystal rebuild and watches frontend/, so editing the editor source rebuilds the bundle too.

To iterate on the editor with readable output and a sourcemap, run in a second terminal:

npm run watch:js

Tests

AMBER_ENV=test amber database migrate   # once, creates db/strates_test.db
AMBER_ENV=test crystal spec

AMBER_ENV=test is required. Without it the suite resolves the development database URL, and the model specs truncate tables — spec/models/snippet_spec.cr aborts with a message rather than let that happen.

Coverage:

• The model: slug generation, forking, validations
• The version cache
• The request schema
• The HTTP layer: routing, pagination, search, content negotiation, error responses, XSS escaping.

Routes

Method	Path	Action	Pipeline
GET	/	list, paginated, ?q= search, ?page=	:web
GET	/:slug	show — HTML, or JSON with Accept: application/json	:web
POST	/strates	create	:api
POST	/:slug/save	save as new, sets forked_from	:api
POST	/:slug/fork	copy a snippet, redirect to it	:web

:slug is constrained to exactly 8 alphanumerics, so non-slug paths fall through to the static pipeline and a real 404.

amber routes    # print the route table

Use of AI

I believe it's important to be transparent on how AI agents are used in open-source projects nowadays. This section is here to describe what parts of the project were assisted by AI.

• Brainstorming and initial project roadmap (see CLAUDE.md).
• Tests
• Initial structure of the models and schemas. It turned out to be not great, so I changed a lot of things.
• Explaining some Crystal and Amber concepts to me, by referring to the official documentation and giving me examples.
• Review the code of editor.js and give me suggestions on how to improve it.

The Crystal LSP and the Ameba shard also helped.

Overall, I made sure to review and edit all the code coming from the agent. This is also a project I'm using to learn Crystal and Amber, so I wanted to make sure I understand everything that is being added to the project.

Everything else was not made with an AI assistant/agent. Just my hands and my brain.

Contributing

1. Fork it (https://github.com/hugolgs-dev/strates/fork)
2. Make sure you read the whole README first.
3. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
4. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
5. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
6. Create a new Pull Request

Contributors

• hugolgs-dev — creator and maintainer

License

MIT — see LICENSE.