Railway

Railway offers simple infrastructure with a great developer experience.

Setup

1. Create Project

1. Go to railway.app/new
2. Choose "Deploy from GitHub repo"
3. Select your repository

2. Configure Service

Railway auto-detects Next.js. Configure for monorepo:

1. Click on your service
2. Go to Settings → Build
3. Set Root Directory: apps/web
4. Set Build Command: pnpm build
5. Set Start Command: pnpm start

3. Environment Variables

Add environment variables in the Variables tab:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://...
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=your-secret-key
PORT=3000

4. Deploy

Railway automatically deploys on push to your default branch.

Database on Railway

Railway can host your PostgreSQL database:

1. Add PostgreSQL

1. Click "New" → "Database" → "PostgreSQL"
2. Railway provisions a database

2. Connect

Use the connection string from the database service:

1. Click on the PostgreSQL service
2. Go to Variables
3. Copy DATABASE_URL
4. Add to your web service variables

Or use Railway's variable references:

DATABASE_URL=${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}

Custom Domain

1. Go to your service → Settings → Domains
2. Add your custom domain
3. Update DNS records

Networking

Private Networking

Services in the same project can communicate privately:

# Reference another service
API_URL=${{api.RAILWAY_PRIVATE_DOMAIN}}

Public Access

Enable public networking for your web service to expose it to the internet.

Scaling

Railway supports horizontal scaling:

1. Go to Settings → Deploy
2. Adjust replicas
3. Configure health checks

Troubleshooting

Build Failures

Check the build logs. Common issues:

• Missing PORT environment variable
• Incorrect root directory
• pnpm not detected (add packageManager to package.json)

Database Connection

If database connections fail:

• Ensure DATABASE_URL is set
• Check the database service is running
• Verify connection pooling settings

Next Steps

• Railway Docs — Full documentation
• Railway Templates — Pre-built configurations