Rails-templates is a project mainly written in Ruby, it's free.
Ya. Most of my Rails project share some common settings, gems and so on. However, not all projects look the same, which means I always need to configure them for my tastes anyway.
It’s similar to the html5 boilerplate, but since this is ruby we don’t have to download everything, and then remove things by hand.
Each directory is given the same name as to what it sets up. It will contain a runnable application template, as well as a README summarizing what settings and changes will be made to your application.
If that sounds complicated, just browse the repository. It’s bound to clear up some question marks. :)
A rails template is a generator that can make changes to your project. But instead of installing the generator as a gem and then running it, you just run a given file right there on the spot. You can put them in local files, github gists, or like I have done: in a github project.