# Rails code is not auto reloading inside dev containers
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/rails-code-is-not-auto-reloading-inside-dev-containers/383327
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [September 19, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rails-code-is-not-auto-reloading-inside-dev-containers/383327 "2025-09-19T17:48:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 1
### Author:  [@alisson](https://meta.discourse.org/u/alisson)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rails-code-is-not-auto-reloading-inside-dev-containers/383327/1 "2025-09-19T17:48:51Z")
Rails logs after make some change:
```sh
[DEV]: Edited files which are not autoloaded. Restarting server...
- app/controllers/admin/admin_controller.rb
RESTARTING UNICORN
I, [2025-09-19T16:35:33.289558 #1735] INFO -- : reaped # worker=0
I, [2025-09-19T16:35:33.289638 #1735] INFO -- : reaped # worker=1
I, [2025-09-19T16:35:33.289701 #1735] INFO -- : reaped # worker=2
I, [2025-09-19T16:35:33.289718 #1735] INFO -- : master complete
TRANSACTION (0.1ms) BEGIN
```
In another terminal, if I send a request, `curl` just hangs:
```sh
$ curl 127.0.0.1:3000
# nothing happens
```
In terminal where I ran `bin/rails s`, I need to type `ctrl + c`:
```sh
Flushed 2 metrics
^CGot INT signal
Shutting down
Terminating quiet threads for default capsule
Scheduler exiting...
Firing quiet event
Firing shutdown event
Pausing to allow jobs to finish...
Bye!
I, [2025-09-19T16:39:36.317846 #4843] INFO -- : Refreshing Gem list
Starting CSS change watcher
TranslationOverride Pluck (0.4ms) SELECT "translation_overrides"."translation_key", "translation_overrides"."value" FROM "translation_overrides" WHERE "translation_overrides"."locale" = 'en'
```
Now, in the second terminal `curl` works as expected:
```sh
$ curl 127.0.0.1:3000
Discourse
```
## Things i tried
The [devcontainer.json](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json) has:
```json
"image": "docker.io/discourse/discourse_dev:20250307-0016",
```
I changed my `devcontainer.json` local to:
```json
"image": "docker.io/discourse/discourse_dev:release",
```
That did not solve the problem.
In `config/environments/development.rb`
```rb
config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::FileUpdateChecker
```
That also did not solve the problem.
## Steps I use to start rails server:
```sh
cd discourse
code . # select "open folder in container"
```
I do not use vscode tasks, so in another terminal i run:
```sh
docker exec -ti -u discourse $ID bash
cd workspace/discourse/
bin/rail s
```
Also, I was expecting the `app` folder to be inside `config.autoload_paths`, but it is not:
```sh
bin/rails console
Loading development environment (Rails 8.0.2.1)
[1] pry(main)> Rails.application.config.autoload_paths
=> ["/workspace/discourse/lib", "/workspace/discourse/lib/guardian", "/workspace/discourse/lib/i18n", "/workspace/discourse/lib/validators"]
```
---
_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rails-code-is-not-auto-reloading-inside-dev-containers/383327)._