Railway

Railway detects a root Dockerfile and builds it instead of choosing a language buildpack. Use the official Nub image so the same Node and Nub versions run in the build and service.

Dockerfile

FROM ghcr.io/nubjs/nub:0.6.0

COPY --chown=node:node package.json package-lock.json ./
RUN nub ci

COPY --chown=node:node . .
CMD ["nub", "run", "start"]

Change package-lock.json to the lockfile the project already uses. The start script must bind its HTTP server to 0.0.0.0 and read Railway's PORT:

import { createServer } from "node:http";

const port = Number(process.env.PORT || 8080);
createServer((request, response) => {
  if (request.url !== "/alive") {
    response.writeHead(404);
    response.end();
    return;
  }

  response.writeHead(200, { "content-type": "application/json" });
  response.end(JSON.stringify({
    alive: true,
    runtime: "nub-on-node",
  }));
}).listen(port, "0.0.0.0");

Dashboard deployment

1. Create a project from the GitHub repository.
2. Select the service and confirm the build log contains Using detected Dockerfile!.
3. Open Settings → Networking and select Generate Domain.

Railway deploys the container on every push to the connected branch. A service does not receive a public domain until one is generated.

CLI deployment

Install and authenticate the Railway CLI, then upload the local source:

railway login
railway init --name nub-app
railway add --service nub-app
railway up --service nub-app --ci
DOMAIN=$(railway domain --service nub-app --json \
  | jq -r '.domain // .domains[0]')

The final command creates a free *.up.railway.app domain when needed and captures the assigned or existing URL.

Request its aliveness endpoint:

curl --fail "$DOMAIN/alive"
# {"alive":true,"runtime":"nub-on-node"}

Port and health checks

Railway supplies PORT when the project has not set one. The application must listen on 0.0.0.0:$PORT; listening on localhost keeps it unreachable from the proxy.

Add a health-check path in the service settings when the application has one. The container already runs as the non-root node user and forwards termination signals through Nub to Node.

Prebuilt images

Railway can also run an application image published by GitHub Actions. Point the service at that image instead of the repository when builds need to happen once in CI rather than again on Railway.