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How to run Rails Console with Follower Database

Instead of using heroku rails console to look up information, we can use the READ ONLY follower database to safely peruse real user data without the risk of accidentally causing damage to the production environment.

Get follower credentials​

Per Ben's request, I am not putting the credentials needed in this document. If you need them, please contact Ivan and he can hook you up. (or grab the from heroku > Postgres Standard 0 > credentials)

Update credentials in database.yml​

Once you get the credentials, open your database.yml file in your code editor and replace the code in the 'development' block with the follower db credentials.

Run rails c​

Now if you run rails c in your terminal, you are using the follower db.

Bonus quick swapping technique:​

(This was new to Brent and will share as well...)

If you start with a clean version of master and just make the db change above, you can save it to a git stash by running git stash save NAME OF STASHY THING. Then you can look atgit stash list and find the index number of your change. Now, when you want to search follower db version of rails console, you can just run git stash apply 0(or correct index number). Then when you are done, just run git checkout config/database.ymland you are back to normal.