Railway CLI

Railway CLI

Official CLI for Railway. Deploy apps, manage services, databases, and environment variables.

• Official repo: https://github.com/railwayapp/cli
• Docs: https://docs.railway.app/reference/cli-api

Authentication

railway login             # Browser-based login
railway login --browserless  # Token-based login
railway whoami            # Check current user

Common Commands

Projects

railway init                  # Create new project
railway link                  # Link to existing project
railway status                # Show current project/environment
railway list                  # List all projects

Deployments

railway up                    # Deploy current directory
railway up --detach           # Deploy without following logs
railway logs                  # View service logs
railway logs --follow         # Stream logs in real-time

Environment Variables

railway variables             # List variables
railway variables set KEY=value
railway variables delete KEY

Services

railway service               # Select active service
railway add                   # Add a new service (database, etc.)
railway domain                # Generate a domain for the service

Shell

railway shell                 # Open shell with Railway env vars loaded
railway run <command>         # Run command with Railway env vars

Agent Best Practices

• Use railway run to execute commands with the project's env vars injected
• Check railway status to confirm you're linked to the correct project/environment
• Use railway logs --follow for debugging deployment issues
• Use railway variables to inspect and manage env vars without the dashboard
• Deploy with railway up --detach for non-blocking deploys

Example Workflows

Deploy and check logs

railway up --detach
railway logs --num 50

Run database migration with Railway env vars

railway run npx prisma migrate deploy