# Whetrails — Project Handoff

## What this is

A Ruby gem that makes ActiveRecord callback and validation chains visible to developers.

When a Rails developer calls `.save` on a model, Rails fires a chain of callbacks and validations in a specific order. These are registered in scattered places (the model file, concerns, gems) and Rails never surfaces the full picture in one place. Whetrails extracts and displays that chain: what fires, in what order, where it's defined, and under what conditions.

This is the first half of a two-part tool. The second half (not yet built) uses the extracted chain as input to a test coverage gap analyzer — showing which callbacks and validators are never exercised by the test suite.

## Current state (as of 2026-06-08)

Two layers are complete:

1. **Core inspector** — extracts the full chain from any ActiveRecord model class at runtime
2. **CLI** — `whetrails inspect <ModelName>` boots the host Rails app and renders the chain to the terminal

The next layer (Rails engine / browser UI) has not been started.

## Build order

```
[DONE]  1. Gem core       lib/whetrails/inspector.rb
[DONE]  2. CLI            exe/whetrails + lib/whetrails/cli.rb
[NEXT]  3. Rails engine   browser UI mounted at /whetrails
        4. Test gap layer  uses chain data to find uncovered callbacks/validators
```

## Repository

- Gitea: http://localhost:3000/bill/whetrails
- Branch: main