File: README — Documentation for audited (5.8.0)

Audited

Audited (previously acts_as_audited) is an ORM extension that logs all changes to your models. Audited can also record who made those changes, save comments and associate models related to the changes.

Audited currently (5.6) works with Rails 7.2, 7.1, 7.0, 6.1, 6.0, 5.2.

For Rails 5.0 & 5.1, use gem version 5.4.3 For Rails 4, use gem version 4.x For Rails 3, use gem version 3.0 or see the 3.0-stable branch.

Supported Rubies

Audited supports and is tested against the following Ruby versions:

2.3 (only tested on Sqlite due to testing issues with other DBs)
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
3.0
3.1
3.2
3.3

Audited may work just fine with a Ruby version not listed above, but we can't guarantee that it will. If you'd like to maintain a Ruby that isn't listed, please let us know with a pull request.

Supported ORMs

Audited is currently ActiveRecord-only. In a previous life, Audited worked with MongoMapper. Use the 4.2-stable branch if you need MongoMapper.

Installation

Add the gem to your Gemfile:

gem "audited"

And if you're using require: false you must add initializers like this:

#./config/initializers/audited.rb
require "audited"

Audited::Railtie.initializers.each(&:run)

Then, from your Rails app directory, create the audits table:

$ rails generate audited:install
$ rake db:migrate

By default changes are stored in YAML format. If you're using PostgreSQL, then you can use rails generate audited:install --audited-changes-column-type jsonb (or json for MySQL 5.7+ and Rails 5+) to store audit changes natively with database JSON column types.

If you're using something other than integer primary keys (e.g. UUID) for your User model, then you can use rails generate audited:install --audited-user-id-column-type uuid to customize the audits table user_id column type.

Upgrading

If you're already using Audited (or acts_as_audited), your audits table may require additional columns. After every upgrade, please run:

$ rails generate audited:upgrade
$ rake db:migrate

Upgrading will only make changes if changes are needed.

Usage

Simply call audited on your models:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited
end

By default, whenever a user is created, updated or destroyed, a new audit is created.

user = User.create!(name: "Steve")
user.audits.count # => 1
user.update!(name: "Ryan")
user.audits.count # => 2
user.destroy
user.audits.count # => 3

Audits contain information regarding what action was taken on the model and what changes were made.

user.update!(name: "Ryan")
audit = user.audits.last
audit.action # => "update"
audit.audited_changes # => {"name"=>["Steve", "Ryan"]}

You can get previous versions of a record by index or date, or list all revisions.

user.revisions
user.revision(1)
user.revision_at(Date.parse("2016-01-01"))

Specifying columns

By default, a new audit is created for any attribute changes. You can, however, limit the columns to be considered.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  # All fields
  # audited

  # Single field
  # audited only: :name

  # Multiple fields
  # audited only: [:name, :address]

  # All except certain fields
  # audited except: :password
end

Specifying callbacks

By default, a new audit is created for any Create, Update, Touch (Rails 6+) or Destroy action. You can, however, limit the actions audited.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  # All fields and actions
  # audited

  # Single field, only audit Update and Destroy (not Create or Touch)
  # audited only: :name, on: [:update, :destroy]
end

You can ignore the default callbacks globally unless the callback action is specified in your model using the :on option. To configure default callback exclusion, put the following in an initializer file (config/initializers/audited.rb):

Audited.ignored_default_callbacks = [:create, :update] # ignore callbacks create and update

Comments

You can attach comments to each audit using an audit_comment attribute on your model.

user.update!(name: "Ryan", audit_comment: "Changing name, just because")
user.audits.last.comment # => "Changing name, just because"

You can optionally add the :comment_required option to your audited call to require comments for all audits.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited :comment_required => true
end

You can update an audit only if audit_comment is present. You can optionally add the :update_with_comment_only option set to false to your audited call to turn this behavior off for all audits.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited :update_with_comment_only => false
end

Limiting stored audits

You can limit the number of audits stored for your model. To configure limiting for all audited models, put the following in an initializer file (config/initializers/audited.rb):

Audited.max_audits = 10 # keep only 10 latest audits

or customize per model:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited max_audits: 2
end

Whenever an object is updated or destroyed, extra audits are combined with newer ones and the old ones are destroyed.

user = User.create!(name: "Steve")
user.audits.count # => 1
user.update!(name: "Ryan")
user.audits.count # => 2
user.destroy
user.audits.count # => 2

Current User Tracking

If you're using Audited in a Rails application, all audited changes made within a request will automatically be attributed to the current user. By default, Audited uses the current_user method in your controller.

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def create
    current_user # => #<User name: "Steve">
    @post = Post.create(params[:post])
    @post.audits.last.user # => #<User name: "Steve">
  end
end

To use a method other than current_user, put the following in an initializer file (config/initializers/audited.rb):

Audited.current_user_method = :authenticated_user

Outside of a request, Audited can still record the user with the as_user method:

Audited.audit_class.as_user(User.find(1)) do
  post.update!(title: "Hello, world!")
end
post.audits.last.user # => #<User id: 1>

The standard Audited install assumes your User model has an integer primary key type. If this isn't true (e.g. you're using UUID primary keys), you'll need to create a migration to update the audits table user_id column type. (See Installation above for generator flags if you'd like to regenerate the install migration.)

Custom Audit User

You might need to use a custom auditor from time to time. This can be done by simply passing in a string:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  def authenticated_user
    if current_user
      current_user
    else
      'Alexander Fleming'
    end
  end
end

as_user also accepts a string, which can be useful for auditing updates made in a CLI environment:

Audited.audit_class.as_user("console-user-#{ENV['SSH_USER']}") do
  post.update_attributes!(title: "Hello, world!")
end
post.audits.last.user # => 'console-user-username'

If you want to set a specific user as the auditor of the commands in a CLI environment, whether that is a string or an ActiveRecord object, you can use the following command:

Audited.store[:audited_user] = "username"

# or

Audited.store[:audited_user] = User.find(1)

Associated Audits

Sometimes it's useful to associate an audit with a model other than the one being changed. For instance, given the following models:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :company
  audited
end

class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :users
end

Every change to a user is audited, but what if you want to grab all of the audits of users belonging to a particular company? You can add the :associated_with option to your audited call:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :company
  audited associated_with: :company
end

class Company < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited
  has_many :users
  has_associated_audits
end

Now, when an audit is created for a user, that user's company is also saved alongside the audit. This makes it much easier (and faster) to access audits indirectly related to a company.

company = Company.create!(name: "Collective Idea")
user = company.users.create!(name: "Steve")
user.update!(name: "Steve Richert")
user.audits.last.associated # => #<Company name: "Collective Idea">
company.associated_audits.last.auditable # => #<User name: "Steve Richert">

You can access records' own audits and associated audits in one go:

company.own_and_associated_audits

Conditional auditing

If you want to audit only under specific conditions, you can provide conditional options (similar to ActiveModel callbacks) that will ensure your model is only audited for these conditions.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited if: :active?

  def active?
    last_login > 6.months.ago
  end
end

Just like in ActiveModel, you can use an inline Proc in your conditions:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited unless: Proc.new { |u| u.ninja? }
end

In the above case, the user will only be audited when User#ninja is false.

Disabling auditing

If you want to disable auditing temporarily doing certain tasks, there are a few methods available.

To disable auditing on a save:

@user.save_without_auditing

or:

@user.without_auditing do
  @user.save
end

To disable auditing on a column:

User.non_audited_columns = [:first_name, :last_name]

To disable auditing on an entire model:

User.auditing_enabled = false

To disable auditing on all models:

Audited.auditing_enabled = false

If you have auditing disabled by default on your model you can enable auditing temporarily.

User.auditing_enabled = false
@user.save_with_auditing

or:

User.auditing_enabled = false
@user.with_auditing do
  @user.save
end

Encrypted attributes

If you're using ActiveRecord's encryption (available from Rails 7) to encrypt some attributes, Audited will automatically filter values of these attributes. No additional configuration is required. Changes to encrypted attributes will be logged as [FILTERED].

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  audited
  encrypts :password
end

Custom `Audit` model

If you want to extend or modify the audit model, create a new class that inherits from Audited::Audit:

class CustomAudit < Audited::Audit
  def some_custom_behavior
    "Hiya!"
  end
end

Then set it in an initializer:

# config/initializers/audited.rb

Audited.config do |config|
  config.audit_class = "CustomAudit"
end

Enum Storage

In 4.10, the default behavior for enums changed from storing the value synthesized by Rails to the value stored in the DB. You can restore the previous behavior by setting the store_synthesized_enums configuration value:

# config/initializers/audited.rb

Audited.store_synthesized_enums = true

Support

You can find documentation at: https://www.rubydoc.info/gems/audited

Or join the mailing list to get help or offer suggestions.

Contributing

In the spirit of free software, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project. Here are a few ways you can pitch in:

Use prerelease versions of Audited.
Report bugs.
Fix bugs and submit pull requests.
Write, clarify or fix documentation.
Refactor code.