<p>Let's say you already "know" what your client wants from you (i.e. you already did some analysis and have some clue about what are you supposed to deliver). What are the next steps you usually go through after this phase? In other words, what are the steps (in terms of preparation of the framework, plugins, repository, etc.) you do in the beginning of <em>every</em> RoR based application development?</p>

I have an empty Rails application with my can't-live-without plugins (haml & rspec in the main) and with Rails frozen to vendor/plugins. I've also modified configuration stuff to fit my environment. The whole thing lives in my svn repository. When I start a new project, I check out my starting point and continue from there. Usually by writing (or trying to remember to write) a test.
It only saves an hour or so, but not having to mess around with stuff I do infrequently (and thus have to look up) is a big plus.
EDIT: Whoops, I forgot to mention
Bort
which is much more comprehensive...