Consider the following posts.rb and comment.rb models:

class Post

  include Mongoid::Document

  include Mongoid::Timestamps

  field :title, type: String

  field :body, type: String

  field :ratings, type: Array

  embeds_many :comments

end

class Comment

  include Mongoid::Document

  include Mongoid::Timestamps

  field :name, type: String

  field :message, type: String

  embedded_in :post

end

If you update the Post.comments collection by pushing a new comment onto the array, the database is immediately updated without having to call post.save:

post = Post.first

post.comments.push(Comment.new(name: “Bob”, message: “Awesome post”))

If updates were made to the post prior to pushing the comment, only the new comment is added to the comments array, not any updates made to the parent Post object.

This broke my mental model of an ODM where multiple changes are performed in memory and those changes are only persisted when I call post.save. If this is intended and expected, we should clearly document how embedded Mongoid::Document objects behave compared to an array of plain old Ruby classes. We should also clearly explain when and when not to use an embedded array of Mongoid::Document versus a plain old Ruby class.