shared examples share the let scope, so you could further dry up your code (assuming you use do_action for every action) to this:

shared_examples :empty_success_response do before do do_action end ... end 

Also, if you are using do_action, I also like to add to my scopes:

describe '#destroy' do let(:do_action) do delete :destroy, id: subject.id.to_s end after do do_action end ... end 

This way, you don't have to call do_action if all you do in the test is set expectations.

it 'makes the call' do expect(controller).to receive(:destroy_item).once.times.with(subject.id.to_s) end 

If in some tests you want do_action to run before the end of the test - that's no problem, since let runs the code only once - so it won't run again at the end of that specific test!

shared examples share the let scope, so you could further dry up your code (assuming you use do_action for every action) to this:

shared_examples :empty_success_response do before do do_action end ... end 

Also, if you are using do_action, I also like to add to my scopes:

describe '#destroy' do let(:do_action) do delete :destroy, id: subject.id.to_s end after do do_action end ... end 

This way, you don't have to call do_action if all you do in the test is set expectations.

it 'makes the call' do expect(controller).to receive(:destroy_item).once.times.with(subject.id.to_s) end 

If in some tests you want do_action to run before the end of the test - that's no problem, since let runs the code only once - so it won't run again at the end of that specific test!