bonsai-searchkick gem

This gem offers a shim to set up Searchkick to work with a Bonsai Elasticsearch cluster. The bonsai-searchkick gem automatically sets up the Searchkick client correctly so users don't need to worry about configuring it in their code or writing an initializer.

The Searchkick gem looks for an environment variable called ELASTICSEARCH_URL which is populated with a URL for an Elasticsearch cluster. If this variable is not found, it assumes the cluster is located at http://localhost:9200.

On platforms like Heroku or Manifold.co, adding Bonsai to an application creates an environment variable called BONSAI_URL, populated with this URL. Searchkick users on these platforms therefore need to take the extra step of creating the ELASTICSEARCH_URL and populating it with the contents of the BONSAI_URL.

This gem removes this extra step by supplying an initializer that checks for the presence of a BONSAI_URL variable and using it to populate the ELASTICSEARCH_URL variable. It also adds some logic around port specification, which was affected by this change to the elasticsearch-ruby gem, which Searchkick relies on.

Add the following to your Gemfile outside of any block:

gem 'searchkick' # if it's not already there
gem 'bonsai-searchkick'

When the gem has been added to your Gemfile, run:

$ bundle install

This will bring in all the necessary dependencies, namely the Searchkick gem.

If you are running your application in Heroku or Manifold, the BONSAI_URL will be automatically created when you add Bonsai to your app. The gem will find it and set up the client automatically with no further work needed.

If you are using Heroku/Manifold, but have a direct account with Bonsai, then you will need to set the BONSAI_URL manually through the UI. You can get the URL from Bonsai, in your cluster dashboard, in the "Credentials" tab.

If you're hosting your app somewhere else, you will need to create and populate the environment variable manually:

export BONSAI_URL="https://user1234:pass5678@cluster-slug-123.aws-region-X.bonsai.io:443"

If you are developing and have a Elasticsearch cluster running locally (localhost:9200), then you do not need to set either the BONSAI_URL or ELASTICSEARCH_URL. If your local cluster has some non-default url, like http://127.0.0.1:9250, then you will need to put this into the ELASTICSEARCH_URL variable:

export ELASTICSEARCH="https://user1234:pass5678@cluster-slug-123.aws-region-X.bonsai.io:443"

It's a best practice to use the BONSAI_URL to connect to Bonsai clusters, and ELASTICSEARCH_URL to connect to local or non-Bonsai clusters. And if you aren't using Bonsai for anything, then what do you need this gem for??

When the Rails application starts up, an initializer will be loaded that looks for the BONSAI_URL variable. If it is found, and is valid, a Searchkick client will be initialized and correctly configured to use a Bonsai cluster.

See the official documentation for information on all the things Searchkick can do. We have additional documentation on getting up and running with Searchkick on Bonsai.io.

Having trouble with the gem? Find a problem or a bug? Just want to say thanks? Shoot us an email!