No route matches missing required keys: [:id]

You need to include the user as well since its a nested route. So something like:

<td><%= link_to "Edit", edit_user_item_path(@user, item) %></td>

You've missed user_id in the following path:

edit_user_item_path(user_id, item)

format you are able to find just running bundle exec rake routes | grep edit_user_item


The problem is that you are using nested resources:

resources :users do
   resources :items
end

So when you have a link:

<%= link_to "Edit", edit_user_item_path(item) %> 

It will lack one user_id so the easy to check the issue is using rake routes. And it will list the routes like this:

edit_user_item GET    /users/:user_id/items/:id/edit(.:format) items#edit

You can see the routes above and check it with the link, you will see it does not have user_id. That's the main reason!