# burke/zeus

Boot any rails app in under a second.

Repository: https://github.com/burke/zeus
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/zeus
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-05-13T16:31:18+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 82/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 82, release rhythm 72, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5151, "days_push": 112, "days_rel": 190, "gap_med": 0, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3320, forks 221 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:56.236922+00:00)

## What it is
Zeus is a CLI tool that preloads a Rails (or other Ruby) application so common development commands like console, server, generators, and tests start in under a second. It works as a language-agnostic application checkpointer using process forking and file-system event monitoring.

## Use cases
- speed up rails console startup
- run rails tests in under a second
- make rails server boot faster in development
- preload a rails app for faster generators
- speed up rspec runs in a rails project
- reduce rails boot time for automated tooling

## When to choose
- you develop Rails apps on macOS or Linux and want near-instant console, server, and test startup
- you run many short-lived Rails commands repeatedly during development
- you want faster Rails command startup for AI agents or automated tooling

## When to avoid
- your project lives on NFS, CIFS, Samba, or VM shared folders without inotify/FSEvents support
- your application is multithreaded or not Ruby/Rails-based
- you need a zero-setup solution - Zeus requires per-project initialization and configuration

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: developer-tools, testing, build-tool
- domain: web-development, developer-tools
- platform: cli, ruby
- tags: rails, ruby, preload, boot-time, process-forking, test-runner, command-line, macos, linux

## Member repositories
- burke/zeus (main) score 82

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:56.236922+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:41:51.036569+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/burke/zeus (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:56.236922+00:00, sha 5678c84d83ee)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.