SynthGain

SynthGain is a niche marketplace for buying and selling vintage synthesizers. The product idea stays intentionally focused: a cleaner, more trustworthy experience for specialist gear than a generic classifieds site.

This repo keeps the original Rails marketplace stack and concept, but refactors the app toward a more polished standard:

• clearer buyer and seller flows
• stronger presentation of listings and seller profiles
• cleaner helper and controller responsibilities
• improved seed data for local demos
• a more intentional visual system for recruiters and collaborators reviewing the codebase

Stack

• Ruby on Rails 6.1
• PostgreSQL
• Webpacker 5
• Bootstrap 5
• Devise
• Ransack
• Active Storage
• Stripe Checkout
• RSpec

Product Flow

Buyers

• browse the marketplace
• filter by title/description and category
• inspect seller profiles
• purchase listings through Stripe

Sellers

• create a seller profile
• publish synth listings with metadata and imagery
• edit or remove existing listings
• track purchases through the orders page

Key App Areas

• app/controllers/listings_controller.rb Marketplace listings, seller ownership checks, and Stripe session creation.
• app/controllers/users_info_controller.rb Seller profile creation, editing, and public seller profile pages.
• app/views/pages/home.html.erb Landing page and recruiter-facing first impression.
• app/views/listings/ Marketplace cards, listing detail, and listing form flow.
• app/assets/stylesheets/application.scss Global design system and page-level styling.

Local Setup

This repo now runs reliably on Apple Silicon/macOS with the following local baseline:

• Ruby 3.0.6
• Bundler 2.2.18
• PostgreSQL
• Node.js LTS recommended
• Yarn 1.22.x

If your shell has proxy variables configured, strip them for installs:

env -u HTTP_PROXY -u HTTPS_PROXY -u http_proxy -u https_proxy <command>

Bootsnap can be unstable on newer macOS toolchains with this older Rails stack, so the setup commands below explicitly disable it.

Example flow:

env -u HTTP_PROXY -u HTTPS_PROXY -u http_proxy -u https_proxy \
PATH="$HOME/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.0.6/bin:$PATH" \
bundle _2.2.18_ install

env -u HTTP_PROXY -u HTTPS_PROXY -u http_proxy -u https_proxy \
corepack yarn install

env -u HTTP_PROXY -u HTTPS_PROXY -u http_proxy -u https_proxy \
DISABLE_BOOTSNAP=1 \
PATH="$HOME/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.0.6/bin:$PATH" \
bundle _2.2.18_ exec rails db:setup

env -u HTTP_PROXY -u HTTPS_PROXY -u http_proxy -u https_proxy \
DISABLE_BOOTSNAP=1 \
PATH="$HOME/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.0.6/bin:$PATH" \
bundle _2.2.18_ exec rails server -p 3001

Then visit http://localhost:3001.

Demo Accounts

• test@test.com / testing
• mrtest@test.com / testing
• mrstest@test.com / testing

Notes

• Checkout requires valid Stripe credentials in Rails credentials.
• Development uses local Active Storage so the app boots without S3.
• Seed data is designed to give the app a cleaner local demo without needing manual setup.
• bin/webpack and bin/webpack-dev-server set --openssl-legacy-provider automatically so Webpacker 5 can still compile on modern Node/OpenSSL combinations.
• Native gem build flags for nio4r, msgpack, and ffi are stored in .bundle/config for repeatable local installs on current macOS toolchains.

Why This Repo Matters

SynthGain is useful as a portfolio project because it shows:

• full-stack Rails product work
• authentication and account flows
• marketplace domain modeling
• payments integration
• server-rendered UI design and refactoring discipline
• willingness to revisit older work and raise the engineering standard