Capybara can get us part of the way there. It allows us to work with an API rather than manipulating the HTML directly, but what it provides isn't an application specific API. It gives us low-level API methods like find, fill_in, and click_button, but it doesn't provide us with high-level methods to do things like "sign in to the app" or "click the Dashboard item in the navigation bar".

I will continue to use form objects and push changes into the repo when I feel they are universally relevant and valuable.

we get the benefit of isolating request specific logic without cramming it into a ActiveRecord model that will be used in multiple controllers/actions