Railway

Railway can deploy Docker images directly from a registry.

Steps

1. Create a new project

In Railway, click New Project → Deploy from Docker image.

Enter the image:

ghcr.io/awaitstep/awaitstep:latest

2. Set environment variables

First, generate two secret keys:

openssl rand -hex 32   # use as TOKEN_ENCRYPTION_KEY
openssl rand -hex 32   # use as BETTER_AUTH_SECRET

Then go to Variables and add:

TOKEN_ENCRYPTION_KEY=your-first-generated-key
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=your-second-generated-key
BETTER_AUTH_URL=https://your-app.up.railway.app
PORT=8080

# Auth — configure at least one
# GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=
# GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=
# GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=
# GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=
RESEND_API_KEY=

Set BETTER_AUTH_URL to your Railway-generated domain (available under Settings → Domains).

3. Configure storage

Under Volumes, add a persistent volume and mount it at /app/data.

4. Set the port

Set the Port to 8080 under Settings → Networking.

5. Deploy

Click Deploy.

Notes

• Railway provides a PostgreSQL plugin. If you use it, set DATABASE_URL to the DATABASE_URL variable Railway injects from the plugin.
• Railway's free tier has compute hour limits. For persistent production use, upgrade to a paid plan.
• Set the health check path to /api/health under Settings → Health Checks for zero-downtime deploys.