Bound SQL literals in CTEs, new tutorial and more!

Hi, it’s Vipul!. Let’s explore this week’s changes in the Rails codebase.

Rails 8.1.0.rc1 was released! Rails 8.1.0 is right around the corner! Try out the latest release candidate and report any bugs you find!

The newest add-on tutorial is now live on the Rails tutorials page!
In this guide, you learn how to add Wishlist functionality to the e-commerce demo app you already started. Find this tutorial and more on the Rails tutorials page: https://rubyonrails.org/docs/tutorials

Add support for bound SQL literals in CTEs
When creating a SQL literal with bind value parameters, Arel.sql returns an instance of Arel::Nodes::BoundSqlLiteral, which is not currently supported by #build_with_expression_from_value. This PR updates the method to accept both Arel::Nodes::SqlLiteral and Arel::Nodes::BoundSqlLiteral.

Add advisory DB update by default in bin/bundler-audit
This PR updates the bin/bundler-audit script to include the --update option.

Show help hint when starting bin/rails console
The help command in the Rails console shows which Rails specific commands are available and what they do.

Similar to bin/rails dbconsole (where database clients show a help hint), show a hint on how to use help when opening bin/rails console.

$ bin/rails console
Loading development environment (Rails 8.1.0.beta1)
Type 'help' for help.
example(dev):001>

Add prefix option to has_secure_token for improved token identification
Adds an optional :prefix parameter to has_secure_token that prepends a string to generated tokens, making token types immediately identifiable in logs, debugging sessions, and error messages

# Before:
  user.auth_token # => "pX27zsMN2ViQKta1bGfLmVJE"
  user.reset_token # => "tU9bLuZseefXQ4yQxQo8wjtB"

# After:
  has_secure_token :auth_token, prefix: "auth_"
  has_secure_token :reset_token, prefix: true

  user.auth_token # => "auth_pX27zsMN2ViQKta1bGfLmVJE"
  user.reset_token # => "reset_token_tU9bLuZseefXQ4yQxQo8wjtB"

Add environment config file existence check
This Pull Request adds a behaviour to Rails::Application which will raise an error if unable to load any environment file.

Add dark mode to http error pages
We now have a dark mode on error pages!

Add error type support to ActiveModel::Errors#messages_for and ActiveModel::Errors#full_messages_for methods
Added type argument support to messages_for and full_messages_for methods of ActiveModel::Errors

Add support for expires_in: when using render with collection:
Pass expires_in to write_multi so the cache key is written with the expiration.

Suggest bin/rails action_text:install from error page
Mirror Active Storage’s encouragement to execute the active_storage:install task from Action Dispatch error pages by adding similar instructions for the rails action_text:install task when the error is related to missing Action Text tables.

You can view the whole list of changes here.
We had 34 contributors to the Rails codebase this past week!

Until next time!

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