37signals-state-records

Model complex business states as records instead of booleans to capture timestamped history and accountability. This approach creates a has_one state model per parent to track who, when, and why for each transition.

Query state records using positive and negative scopes with where.missing and joins. This pattern supports open/closed, published/private, and archived/active filtering by checking the presence or absence of associated state records.

Yes, the state records pattern supports tenancy and associations for multi-tenant Rails apps. It includes lightweight event-like tracking to provide per-change provenance and audit capabilities across tenant data.

Create a dedicated state record, such as a Closure for closed states, to begin tracking who changed its state, when, and why. This enforces user associations and timestamped events for full audit provenance.

Use state records when you need per-change provenance, timestamped history, and rich metadata for transitions. Booleans lack accountability, whereas state records enforce user associations and capture why each state change occurred.