pietz/railway

Railway Deployment

CLI Basics

The Railway CLI has built-in help for all commands:

railway --help
railway <command> --help

Important: The CLI has interactive menus that don't work in automated contexts. Always provide all required parameters explicitly to avoid prompts (e.g., --workspace, --service, --name).

Common Commands

# Create project (always specify workspace to avoid prompt)
railway init --name "my-project" --workspace "Workspace Name"

# Deploy from a template (get ID from template URL on railway.com)
railway init --template <template-id>

# Add PostgreSQL database
railway add --database postgres

# Add empty service for your app
railway add --service api

# Link local directory to service
railway service link api

# Set environment variables (use references for database URLs)
railway variables --service api --set 'DATABASE_URL=${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}'

# Deploy
railway up

# Generate public domain
railway domain --service api

# View logs
railway logs --service api
railway logs --service api --build    # build logs

# SSH into running service
railway ssh --service api

More Commands

These are less common but useful — run railway <command> --help for details:

railway status --json          # full project overview (services, deployments, domains)
railway metrics --service api  # CPU, memory, network, disk usage
railway redeploy --service api # redeploy latest deployment
railway restart --service api  # restart without redeploying
railway down --service api     # take a service offline

Variable Wiring

Reference variables across services with ${{ServiceName.VARIABLE}}:

# Wire a database to your app
railway variables --service api --set 'DATABASE_URL=${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}'
railway variables --service api --set 'REDIS_URL=${{Redis.REDIS_URL}}'

# Wire backend URL to frontend
railway variables --service web --set 'API_URL=${{api.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}'

Railway also provides built-in variables: RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN, RAILWAY_PRIVATE_DOMAIN, RAILWAY_PROJECT_ID, RAILWAY_ENVIRONMENT_NAME, etc.

GraphQL API

For operations not available in the CLI, Railway has a GraphQL API:

• Endpoint: https://backboard.railway.com/graphql/v2
• Auth token: ~/.railway/config.json → user.token (use as Bearer token)
• API docs: https://docs.railway.com/api/llms-docs.md

Always bind your app to 0.0.0.0:$PORT - Railway injects the PORT variable.

Logging (Python)

Railway parses single-line JSON on stdout, colors by level field, and makes all JSON fields queryable via @field:value in the Log Explorer. For the full setup guide, patterns, and pitfalls, see logging-python.md.