Using .irbrc with the Heroku Console

As a Ruby developer having a local .irbrc file is really handy for specifying custom settings and method helpers to help speed up tasks when in the IRB or Rails console. I always wondered if this would also work in the Heroku console as I work in that environment all the time. I’m often checking on data, particularly delayed jobs if I’ve recently deployed or have to run a rake task.

I had kept forgetting to give it a try but today I added an .irbrc file (with the contents you see below) to a project repository and deployed to staging.

#!/usr/bin/ruby

def q
  exit
end

def dj
  Delayed::Job
end

def djc
  Delayed::Job.count
end

Just as you would expect the above methods run successfully in the Heroku console. No special configuration needed. Just a normal .irbrc file in the root of your git project and you’re all set.