Railway Deploy

Overview

Deploy, manage, and monitor applications on Railway using the CLI. Covers the full lifecycle: project setup, service configuration, environment variables, deployments, scaling, logs, and debugging.

Instructions

Task A: Project Setup & Linking

First verify the CLI is installed. If railway is not found, install it:

npm i -g @railway/cli   # or: brew install railway

Check if already linked to a project:

railway status

If not linked, either create a new project or link to an existing one:

railway init    # Create a new project
railway link    # Link to an existing project

After linking, confirm with railway status to verify project, service, and environment context.

For CI/CD or headless environments, use token auth:

RAILWAY_TOKEN=xxx railway up       # Project-scoped token
RAILWAY_API_TOKEN=xxx railway up   # Account-scoped token

Task B: Deploy

# Deploy current directory and stream logs
railway up

# Deploy without waiting for logs
railway up --detach

# Target a specific service
railway up -s my-service

# Deploy to a specific environment
railway up -e staging

To remove the latest deployment:

railway down

To redeploy the latest deployment (same code, fresh build):

railway redeploy

To restart a service without rebuilding:

railway restart

Task C: Manage Services & Resources

# Add a service interactively
railway add

# Add a database
railway add --database postgres   # also: mysql, redis, mongo

# Add a service from a GitHub repo
railway add --repo user/repo

# Switch linked service context
railway service

# Scale a service
railway scale

# Generate a Railway subdomain or add a custom domain
railway domain
railway domain example.com

# Manage persistent volumes
railway volume list
railway volume add
railway volume delete

# Delete the entire project
railway delete

Task D: Environment Variables

# List all variables for current service/environment
railway variable list

# Set a variable
railway variable set DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@host:5432/db

# Set multiple variables
railway variable set KEY1=value1 KEY2=value2

# Delete a variable
railway variable delete SECRET_KEY

Task E: Environments

# Switch environment interactively
railway environment

# Create a new environment
railway environment new staging

# Delete an environment
railway environment delete dev

# Deploy to a specific environment
railway up -e production

Task F: Logs & Debugging

# Stream live logs
railway logs

# View build logs
railway logs --build

# View last N lines
railway logs -n 100

# SSH into the running container
railway ssh

# Connect to a database shell (e.g., psql, mysql, redis-cli)
railway connect

Task G: Local Development

# Run a command with Railway environment variables injected
railway run npm start
railway run python manage.py migrate

# Open an interactive shell with Railway env vars
railway shell

Examples

Example 1: Deploy a Node.js app from scratch

User request: "Deploy my Node.js app to Railway"

Actions taken:

$ railway login
> Opening browser for authentication...
> Logged in as andrey@example.com

$ railway init
> Created project "my-node-app" in workspace "Personal"

$ railway up
> Uploading 2.3 MB...
> Build started
> Installing dependencies...
> Build completed in 34s
> Deployment live at my-node-app.up.railway.app

$ railway domain
> Service domain: my-node-app.up.railway.app

Example 2: Add a Postgres database and wire it up

User request: "Add a database to my Railway project and set it up"

Actions taken:

$ railway status
> Project: my-node-app
> Service: web
> Environment: production

$ railway add --database postgres
> Added PostgreSQL service to project

# The DATABASE_URL is automatically injected. Verify:
$ railway variable list
> DATABASE_URL=postgres://railway:abc123@host:5432/railway
> PGHOST=host
> PGPORT=5432
> ...

# Run migrations using Railway env vars
$ railway run npx prisma migrate deploy
> Applying migrations...
> 3 migrations applied successfully

$ railway redeploy
> Redeploying web service...
> Deployment live

Example 3: Debug a failing deployment

User request: "My Railway deployment is crashing, help me debug it"

Actions taken:

$ railway status
> Project: my-api
> Service: web
> Environment: production

# Check build logs first
$ railway logs --build
> Step 4/8: RUN npm ci
> npm ERR! Could not resolve dependency: peer express@"^4.0.0"

# If build passes but runtime fails, check runtime logs
$ railway logs -n 50
> Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432

# Verify variables are set
$ railway variable list
> DATABASE_URL=postgres://...@localhost:5432/mydb  # BUG: using localhost

# Fix: point to the Railway-provided database host
$ railway variable set DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@railway-db-host:5432/mydb

$ railway redeploy
> Redeploying...
> Deployment live

Task H: Health Checks and Auto-Rollback

After deploying, verify the service is healthy before considering the deploy complete. If unhealthy, roll back to the previous deployment.

# Deploy and wait for completion
$ railway up --detach

# Health check loop — verify the service responds
HEALTH_URL="https://your-app.railway.app/api/health"
TIMEOUT=60
DEADLINE=$((SECONDS + TIMEOUT))
HEALTHY=false

while [ $SECONDS -lt $DEADLINE ]; do
  STATUS=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" "$HEALTH_URL" 2>/dev/null || echo "000")
  if [ "$STATUS" = "200" ]; then
    HEALTHY=true
    break
  fi
  echo "Waiting for healthy response... (status: $STATUS)"
  sleep 3
done

if [ "$HEALTHY" = true ]; then
  echo "✅ Deployment healthy!"
else
  echo "❌ Health check failed! Rolling back..."
  railway rollback
  echo "⏪ Rolled back to previous deployment"
fi

Automated deploy script with health verification:

# deploy_railway.py — Deploy with health check and auto-rollback
import subprocess
import time
import httpx

def deploy_with_health_check(health_url, timeout=60):
    """Deploy to Railway, verify health, rollback on failure."""
    print("🚀 Deploying to Railway...")
    subprocess.run(["railway", "up", "--detach"], check=True)

    print(f"🏥 Health checking {health_url}...")
    deadline = time.time() + timeout
    while time.time() < deadline:
        try:
            r = httpx.get(health_url, timeout=5)
            if r.status_code == 200:
                print("✅ Healthy!")
                return True
        except httpx.RequestError:
            pass
        time.sleep(3)

    print("❌ Unhealthy! Rolling back...")
    subprocess.run(["railway", "rollback"], check=True)
    print("⏪ Rolled back")
    return False

Guidelines

• Always run railway status first to confirm project, service, and environment context before making changes.
• Use railway up --detach in CI/CD pipelines to avoid blocking on log output.
• Use RAILWAY_TOKEN for project-scoped CI/CD auth and RAILWAY_API_TOKEN for account-level operations.
• Use -s service-name and -e environment-name flags when managing multi-service projects to avoid acting on the wrong target.
• Use railway run to execute one-off commands (migrations, seeds) with production env vars without deploying.
• If a deployment fails, check build logs (railway logs --build) first, then runtime logs (railway logs).
• Use railway connect to get a database shell directly without needing connection strings locally.
• Add --json to any command for machine-readable output in scripts.
• Use railway variable set to update env vars, then railway redeploy to pick up the changes.
• Use railway environment new to create staging/preview environments that mirror production config.
• If railway command is not found, install via npm i -g @railway/cli or brew install railway.
• If railway login fails or times out, use railway login --browserless for headless/SSH environments.