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Deploying with Railway

Railway is halfway between a VPS (virtual private server) and a hosting platform like Netlify or Vercel. It's the perfect place to host an Andromeda app if you're a beginner, and every Andromeda app has a one-click Railway template to make it even easier.

This guide walks through the general process of deploying the Andromeda app posts to Railway. For app-specific environment variables and configuration, check the corresponding app's page.

Deploy

On the app's page, click the Deploy on Railway button. If you haven't signed up for Railway yet you'll be prompted to do so before continuing.

Configure

Railway will show a Configure button, and when you click on it you will need to fill in the environment variables for that app. Most Andromeda apps share a couple of common ones:

  • SITE_URL - The public URL your app will be hosted at. If you don't know what that URL will be yet, you can put a placeholder like https://example.com and update it once Railway gives you a hosted URL.
  • A password variable (e.g. POSTS_PASSWORD, JOTTS_PASSWORD, CELLAR_PASSWORD) - The password used to access the admin dashboard for that app.

Check the specific app's page for the full list of environment variables it accepts.

railway deploying app

Once you have filled these out click the Save Config button at the bottom, then click Deploy.

Use

Your app is now live. Click on the square with your app to see the hosted URL for it.

railway deployment with hosted url

If your app uses a SITE_URL variable, copy the hosted URL, go into the Variables tab, click Edit for the SITE_URL variable, and paste in the new value. This makes sure the app is fully functional.

railway edit existing variable

Those Railway URLs are not pretty, so if you have a custom domain, visit the Settings tab and under the Networking section click + Custom Domain to set it up. Make sure to update the SITE_URL variable again after you do this.

Check out the other available Andromeda apps! Each one has its own one-click Railway template on its page, along with the full list of environment variables it accepts.

  • Posts - A minimal CMS blog with an admin interface.
  • Jotts - A minimal self-hosted markdown notes app.
  • Library - A minimal personal book tracker.
  • Cellar - A minimal wine collection tracker.
  • Feeds - A minimal RSS reader that sends you back to the author's site to read posts in their original context.
  • Shrink - A simple self-hosted tool for compressing and resizing images.
  • Sipp - A single binary for code sharing with a web server and interactive TUI.
  • OG - A simple web tool for inspecting Open Graph tags on any URL.