How do I run rake tasks within my rails application

require 'rake'
RailsApp::Application.load_tasks
class SomeModel <ActiveRecord::Base
  def self.run_rake(task_name)
    load File.join(Rails.root, 'lib', 'tasks', 'custom_task.rake')
    Rake::Task[task_name].invoke
  end
end

And then just use SomeModel.run_rake("ts:reindex").

If you wish this rake code to run during the request cycle then you should avoid running rake via system or any of the exec family (including backticks) as this will start a new ruby interpreter and reload the rails environment each time it is called.

Instead you can call the Rake commands directly as follows :-

require 'rake'

class SomeModel <ActiveRecord::Base

  def self.run_rake(task_name)
    load File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'lib', 'tasks', 'custom_task.rake')
    Rake::Task[task_name].invoke
  end
end

Note: in Rails 4+, you'll use Rails.root instead of RAILS_ROOT.

And then just use SomeModel.run_rake("ts:reindex")

The key parts here are to require rake and make sure you load the file containing the task definitions.

Most information obtained from http://railsblogger.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-queue_15.html

This code automagically loads the Rake tasks for your Rails application without you even knowing how your application is named :)

class MySidekiqTask
  include Sidekiq::Worker

  def perform
    application_name = Rails.application.class.parent_name
    application = Object.const_get(application_name)
    application::Application.load_tasks
    Rake::Task['db:migrate'].invoke
  end
end