I am able to pass in arguments as follows: desc "Testing args" task: :hello, :user, :message do |t, args| args.with_defaults(:message => "Thanks for logging on") puts "Hello #{args[:user]}. #{:message}" end I am also able to load the current environment for a Rails application desc "Testing environment" task: :hello => :environment do puts "Hello #{User.first.name}." end What I would like to do is