Deploy qhook to Railway

Railway’s free plan has execution hour limits, but works well for testing.

1. Deploy via Railway CLI

# Install CLI
npm install -g @railway/cli

# Login & create project
railway login
railway init

# Deploy (auto-detects Dockerfile)
railway up

Railway detects the Dockerfile in the repository root and builds automatically.

2. Environment Variables

Set via the Railway dashboard or CLI:

railway variables set RUST_LOG=info
railway variables set DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///data/qhook.db

Variable	Description	Example
DATABASE_URL	DB connection string	postgres://... or sqlite:///data/qhook.db
RUST_LOG	Log level	info, debug
PORT	Auto-set by Railway	(automatic)

3. Postgres Add-on

railway add --plugin postgresql

This automatically injects DATABASE_URL into your environment variables. No additional qhook configuration needed. If switching from SQLite, remove the manually set DATABASE_URL.

4. Custom Domain

railway domain  # Creates a *.up.railway.app subdomain

For custom domains, add them in the dashboard under Settings > Domains and configure a DNS CNAME record.

5. Config File Placement

Railway has limited volume persistence, so use one of these approaches:

Option A: Include in repository (recommended)

Place qhook.yaml in your repo and copy it in the Dockerfile:

COPY qhook.yaml /data/qhook.yaml

Option B: Railway Volumes

Mount a Volume to /data in the dashboard and manually place the file on first deploy.

PORT Environment Variable

Railway may specify the listen port via the PORT environment variable. Handle this in qhook.yaml:

server:
  port: ${PORT:-8888}

Falls back to 8888 if PORT is not set.

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Minimal setup: railway init && railway up. Add the Postgres add-on when you need it.