ruby 41 lines · 8 steps

A guarded destroy action in Rails

A namespaced admin controller deletes an account only after confirmation, protection, and transactional safety checks.

Explained by highlit

Rails Intermediate controllers callbacks transactions authorization auditing

1class Admin::AccountsController < Admin::BaseController
before_action :set_account, only: :destroy
3 
def destroy
  if params[:confirm_name] != @account.name
    redirect_to admin_account_path(@account),
      alert: "Type the account name exactly to confirm deletion."
    return
  end
10 
  if @account.protected?
    redirect_to admin_account_path(@account),
      alert: "This account is protected and cannot be deleted."
    return
  end
16 
  @account.transaction do
    @account.memberships.destroy_all
    @account.destroy!
  end
21 
  AccountAuditLog.record!(
    action: :destroyed,
    target: @account,
    actor: current_admin,
    metadata: { name: @account.name }
  )
28 
  redirect_to admin_accounts_path,
    notice: "Account #{@account.name} was permanently deleted."
rescue ActiveRecord::RecordNotDestroyed => e
  redirect_to admin_account_path(@account),
    alert: "Could not delete account: #{e.message}"
end
35 
private
37 
def set_account
  @account = Account.find(params[:id])
end
41end

01 / 01

STEP 01

Walkthrough

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Three takeaways

1Guard clauses with early returns keep destructive actions readable by rejecting bad requests before any mutation happens.
2Wrapping dependent deletions in a transaction ensures the record and its associations are removed atomically or not at all.
3Recording an audit log after a successful destroy preserves accountability for irreversible operations.

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