moai-platform-railway: Container Deployment Specialist

Quick Reference

Railway Platform Core: Container-first deployment platform with Docker and Railpack builds, multi-service architectures, persistent volumes, private networking, and auto-scaling capabilities.

Railway Optimal Use Cases

Container Workloads:

• Full-stack containerized applications with custom runtimes
• Multi-service architectures with inter-service communication
• Backend services requiring persistent connections (WebSocket, gRPC)
• Database-backed applications with managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis

Infrastructure Requirements:

• Persistent volume storage for stateful workloads
• Private networking for secure service mesh
• Multi-region deployment for global availability
• Auto-scaling based on CPU, memory, or request metrics

Build Strategy Selection

Docker Build: Custom system dependencies, multi-stage builds, specific base images Railpack Build: Standard runtimes (Node.js, Python, Go), zero-config, faster builds

Note: Nixpacks is deprecated. New services default to Railpack.

Key CLI Commands

railway login && railway init && railway link
railway up                    # Deploy current directory
railway up --detach          # Deploy without logs
railway variables --set KEY=value
railway logs --service api
railway rollback --previous

Module Index

Docker Deployment (modules/docker-deployment.md)

Multi-stage Dockerfiles for Node.js, Python, Go, and Rust. Build optimization, image size reduction, health checks, and Railpack migration.

Multi-Service Architecture (modules/multi-service.md)

Monorepo deployments, service communication, variable references, private networking, and message queue patterns.

Volumes and Storage (modules/volumes-storage.md)

Persistent volume configuration, file storage service, SQLite on volumes, backup/restore patterns.

Networking and Domains (modules/networking-domains.md)

Private networking, custom domains with SSL, multi-region deployment, auto-scaling, WebSocket support.

Implementation Guide

Phase 1: Project Setup

railway login && railway init && railway link

railway.toml:

[build]
builder = "DOCKERFILE"
dockerfilePath = "./Dockerfile"

[deploy]
healthcheckPath = "/health"
healthcheckTimeout = 60
restartPolicyType = "ON_FAILURE"
numReplicas = 2

[deploy.resources]
memory = "512Mi"
cpu = "0.5"

Phase 2: Container Configuration

Quick Start Dockerfile (Node.js):

FROM node:20-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:20-alpine AS runner
WORKDIR /app
ENV NODE_ENV=production
RUN addgroup --system --gid 1001 nodejs && adduser --system --uid 1001 appuser
COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
USER appuser
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "dist/main.js"]

For detailed patterns, see modules/docker-deployment.md.

Phase 3: Multi-Service Setup

Service Variable References:

${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}
${{Redis.REDIS_URL}}
${{api.RAILWAY_PRIVATE_DOMAIN}}

Private Networking:

const getInternalUrl = (service: string, port = 3000): string => {
  const domain = process.env[`${service.toUpperCase()}_RAILWAY_PRIVATE_DOMAIN`]
  return domain ? `http://${domain}:${port}` : `http://localhost:${port}`
}

For detailed patterns, see modules/multi-service.md.

Phase 4: Storage and Scaling

Volume Configuration:

[[volumes]]
mountPath = "/app/data"
name = "app-data"
size = "10Gi"

Auto-Scaling:

[deploy.scaling]
minReplicas = 2
maxReplicas = 10
targetCPUUtilization = 70

Multi-Region:

[[deploy.regions]]
name = "us-west1"
replicas = 3

[[deploy.regions]]
name = "europe-west4"
replicas = 2

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions:

name: Railway Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm i -g @railway/cli
      - run: railway up --detach
        env:
          RAILWAY_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.RAILWAY_TOKEN }}

Context7 Documentation Access

Step 1: Use mcp__context7__resolve-library-id with "railway" Step 2: Use mcp__context7__get-library-docs with resolved ID and topic

Works Well With

• moai-platform-vercel: Edge deployment for frontend
• moai-domain-backend: Backend architecture patterns
• moai-lang-python: Python FastAPI deployment
• moai-lang-typescript: TypeScript Node.js patterns
• moai-lang-go: Go service deployment

Additional Resources

• reference.md: Extended documentation and configuration
• examples.md: Working code examples for common scenarios

Status: Production Ready | Version: 2.0.0 | Updated: 2025-12-30