deploy-railway

name	deploy-railway
description	Deploy applications to Railway. Use when deploying services, databases, or full-stack applications to Railway PaaS. Covers Railway CLI and configuration.

Deploy to Railway

Why Railway?

• Zero config deployments
• Automatic HTTPS
• Built-in databases
• Environment management
• Preview environments

Quick Start

# Install CLI
npm install -g @railway/cli

# Login
railway login

# Initialize project
railway init

# Deploy
railway up

Configuration

railway.json

{
  "build": {
    "builder": "NIXPACKS"
  },
  "deploy": {
    "startCommand": "npm start",
    "healthcheckPath": "/health",
    "restartPolicyType": "ON_FAILURE"
  }
}

Environment Variables

# Set variable
railway variables set DATABASE_URL=postgres://...

# Set from file
railway variables set < .env.production

Database Setup

# Add PostgreSQL
railway add --database postgres

# Get connection URL
railway variables get DATABASE_URL

Deployment Workflow

1. Connect Repo

railway link

2. Configure Build

Railway auto-detects most frameworks. Override with:

# Nixpacks (default)
railway up

# Dockerfile
railway up --dockerfile

3. Set Domain

railway domain

Best Practices

1. Use Preview Environments: Test PRs before merge
2. Separate Databases: Different DB per environment
3. Use Variables: Never hardcode secrets
4. Health Checks: Enable for reliability
5. Logs: Use railway logs for debugging

Common Commands

# View logs
railway logs

# Open dashboard
railway open

# Run command in environment
railway run npm run migrate

# List services
railway status