ShortList
DemoGitHubDeploying on Railway
How the public instance runs. For your own server, self-hosting is simpler.
Railway
One service runs everything: API, web app and background jobs (pg-boss, in the same process and database). The build is the Dockerfile (auto-detected). Deploy settings are service settings in the
Railway dashboard (job-tracker → Settings → Deploy). Railway ignores railway.json deploy keys for
services created after its Config-as-Code deprecation, so they are not kept in the repo:
| Stage | What runs | On failure |
|---|---|---|
| Build | Dockerfile: install, pnpm build, reinstall production deps only |
build fails |
| Pre-deploy | node apps/api/dist/scripts/migrate.js: checks pg_trgm is available, applies migrations. Never seeds. |
deploy fails, old version keeps running |
| Start | node apps/api/dist/server.js (does not migrate) |
restarted (5 retries) |
| Health | GET /api/health (queries the DB) |
deploy not promoted |
Dashboard deploy settings: Pre-deploy command node apps/api/dist/scripts/migrate.js,
Healthcheck path /api/health (timeout 60 s), restart policy On failure. The start command is
the Dockerfile's CMD. Note: Railway's Redeploy reuses the previous deployment's settings snapshot;
after changing service settings, ship a new deployment (git push) for them to apply.
Service variables: NODE_ENV=production, TRUST_PROXY=2 (Railway's edge adds a hop; verify with
GET /api/health/request), SERVE_WEB=true,
APP_ORIGIN=https://<domain>, DATABASE_URL=${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}, a production-only
ENCRYPTION_KEYS / ENCRYPTION_ACTIVE_KEY_ID, plus any tunables from .env.example.
Postgres: Railway's standard image works (only pg_trgm is needed; pgvector is not used yet).
First-time data (never copies the dev DB): create the account with create-user.js against the
production DB, then import the spreadsheet through the app's API (dry run first, then ?commit=true).
Rehearse locally: docker build -t jobtracker:local ., then run the pre-deploy and start commands
against a scratch database.
Backups
Daily backups are Railway's own Postgres backups (Postgres service → Backups tab). Postgres has no public endpoint; only the app reaches it over Railway's private network.