BoringCache Ruby

Prebuilt Ruby distributions with multiple variants for fast CI/CD setup. Built with ruby-build and cached using BoringCache.

Seconds to install Ruby instead of 5-15 minutes compiling from source. Archives are ~12-17 MB compressed.

Quick Start

# Install BoringCache CLI
curl -sSL https://install.boringcache.com/install.sh | sh

# Restore Ruby (tag:path format)
boringcache restore ruby/ruby ruby-3.4.8-yjit-macos-15-arm64:/tmp/bc-ruby

# Add to PATH
export PATH="/tmp/bc-ruby/bin:$PATH"
ruby --version

Usage with mise

VERSION=3.4.8
INSTALL_DIR=~/.local/share/mise/installs/ruby/${VERSION}
mkdir -p "${INSTALL_DIR}"

# Restore and move into mise's install directory
boringcache restore ruby/ruby ruby-${VERSION}-yjit-macos-15-arm64:/tmp/bc-ruby
mv /tmp/bc-ruby/* "${INSTALL_DIR}/" && rm -rf /tmp/bc-ruby

# Tell mise it's installed
mise use ruby@${VERSION}
ruby --version

Usage with rbenv

VERSION=3.4.8
INSTALL_DIR=~/.rbenv/versions/${VERSION}
mkdir -p "${INSTALL_DIR}"

# Restore and move into rbenv's versions directory
boringcache restore ruby/ruby ruby-${VERSION}-yjit-ubuntu-22-04-amd64:/tmp/bc-ruby
mv /tmp/bc-ruby/* "${INSTALL_DIR}/" && rm -rf /tmp/bc-ruby

# Rebuild shims and set version
rbenv rehash
rbenv shell ${VERSION}
ruby --version

Variants

All versions are built in 4 variants (Windows: standard only):

Variant	Tag example	Use case
standard	ruby-3.4.8-ubuntu-22-04-amd64	Default, maximum compatibility
yjit	ruby-3.4.8-yjit-macos-15-arm64	Best runtime performance
jemalloc	ruby-3.4.8-jemalloc-debian-bookworm-arm64	Reduced memory fragmentation
jemalloc-yjit	ruby-3.4.8-jemalloc-yjit-ubuntu-24-arm64	Best performance + memory

Native extensions (nokogiri, nio4r, etc.) compile normally against all variants.

Supported Versions

Series	Versions	Status	EOL
4.0	4.0.1, 4.0.0	Stable	Mar 2029
3.4	3.4.8, 3.4.7, 3.4.6	Stable	Mar 2028
3.3	3.3.10, 3.3.9, 3.3.8	Stable	Mar 2027
3.2	3.2.10, 3.2.9, 3.2.8	Security	Mar 2026

Supported Platforms

Platform	Architectures
Ubuntu 22.04	amd64, arm64
Ubuntu 24.04	amd64, arm64
Ubuntu 25.04	amd64, arm64
Debian Bookworm	amd64, arm64
Alpine Linux	amd64
Arch Linux	amd64
macOS 15	arm64
Windows	amd64, arm64

Cache Tag Format

ruby-{VERSION}[-{VARIANT}]-{PLATFORM}-{ARCH}

GitHub Actions

name: CI
on: [push]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      BORINGCACHE_API_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.BORINGCACHE_API_TOKEN }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Ruby
        run: |
          curl -sSL https://install.boringcache.com/install.sh | sh
          boringcache restore ruby/ruby ruby-3.4.8-yjit-ubuntu-22-04-amd64:./ruby
          echo "$PWD/ruby/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH

      - name: Test
        run: |
          ruby --version
          bundle install
          bundle exec rake test

Local Building

# Build specific variant
make build RUBY_VERSION=3.4.8 PLATFORM=ubuntu-22.04 ARCH=amd64 VARIANTS=yjit

# Build and upload
make ci-build RUBY_VERSION=3.4.8 PLATFORM=ubuntu-22.04 ARCH=amd64

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
BORINGCACHE_API_TOKEN	API token (required)
BORINGCACHE_DEFAULT_WORKSPACE	Workspace override (default: ruby/ruby)

Troubleshooting

# Shared library errors on Linux
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$PWD/ruby/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

# Shared library errors on macOS
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="$PWD/ruby/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

License

MIT