Rails: run rake tasks like migrations

Question

My dev team needs to more precisely run rake tasks. There are certain tasks that need to be only run once after a specific code change. Without getting too specific, it would be like needing to update certain existing users records after a new business rule for new users is implemented in the code.

We like how migrations use a db table for logging. Is there a similar tool for rake tasks? Can we hack Rails'/ActiveRecord's migrations system for rake tasks?

We'd prefer not to mix db-related migrations with rake tasks, so any solution that explicitly keeps these separate would be great.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I created a gem for exactly what you need: http://eyaleizenberg.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/how-to-keep-track-of-rails-rake-tasks.html

Answer 2

need to be only run once after a specific code change

update certain existing users records

These are migrations. Use migrations. Unless there's some additional constraints you didn't mention, using anything but migrations would be a hack.