Railway

A Project is a workspace-scoped namespace. A Service is a container — a public image, an Effect program Alchemy bundles, or a canvas Function. Postgres, MySQL, Mongo, Redis, Volumes, Variables, and Buckets live in the same TypeScript program.

The production environment is created with the Project. Extra environments (staging) are a separate resource. Workspace is not a resource — Alchemy uses me.workspace ?? me.workspaces[0].

Set up your workspace and API token, then start the tutorial.

Compute

• Projects — the parent for every other resource. Alchemy generates a unique name unless you pass one. https://railway.com/project/{projectId} is the dashboard.
• Services — a container in a Project. Pass image for a public tag (hashicorp/http-echo), main for an Effect program, or repo for GitHub. healthcheck / cronSchedule / buildCommand match Railway IaC. url is https://{name}.up.railway.app. Railway load-balances public traffic; Alchemy does not pin a replica count.
• Functions, templates & VMs — Effect-native canvas Functions (main, no registry), inline source / cron, marketplace templates, sandboxes, and cloud agents.
• Environments — extra deploy environments under a Project. Do not recreate production — it is project.environmentId.
• Regions — where a Service, Volume, or database instance runs (us-west2, us-east4, …). Buckets use a shorter set (sjc, iad, ams, sin).

Frontend

• Websites — Vite, Astro, Next.js, Nuxt, React Router, SolidStart, SvelteKit, TanStack Start, Waku, Octane, Foldkit, Vocs, and StaticSite. Each builds your app and deploys a Service from a generated Dockerfile Railway builds. URL is *.up.railway.app or a custom domain.
• Vite, Astro, Next.js, Nuxt, React Router, SolidStart, SvelteKit, TanStack Start, Waku, Octane, Foldkit, Vocs, StaticSite.

Data

• Volumes — block disk in a Project. Create one, then mount it into a Service with MountVolume(volume, { path }). Snapshot with VolumeBackup.
• Postgres — official SSL Postgres image, a Volume, DATABASE_URL, and an optional public TCP proxy. Bind ConnectPostgres on a Service; pass the connection string to Drizzle or SQL.
• MySQL — official mysql image, MYSQL_URL, ConnectMySQL.
• Mongo — official mongo image, MONGO_URL, ConnectMongo.
• Redis — redis:7 or bitnami/redis. Bind ReadWriteRedis on a Service.
• Buckets — S3-compatible object storage. Bind PutObject / GetObject on a Service.

Variables

• Variables — Config.redacted in a Service for values from .env. Railway.Variable when Railway should own a value shared across services. Railway.ref(Db, "DATABASE_URL") emits ${{Db.DATABASE_URL}} (IaC db.env.DATABASE_URL). The plaintext is never stored in attributes.

Networking

• Custom domains, TCP & private networks — your hostname on a Service (CustomDomain), public TCP for Postgres/MySQL/Mongo/Redis (TcpProxy on *.proxy.rlwy.net), and named private meshes (PrivateNetwork + PrivateNetworkEndpoint). HTTP Services already get a generated *.up.railway.app domain.

What are you building?

You’re building	Reach for
An HTTP API on Railway	Project + Service
A Vite SPA	Website.Vite
An SSR site (Astro, Next, Nuxt, …)	Website
A raw container	Service with an image
An Effect Function (no registry)	Function
A canvas / cron Function	Function with source
A background worker	Service with ServerHost.run
Persistent disk	Volume + MountVolume (one volume per service)
Volume snapshot	VolumeBackup
Postgres	Postgres + ConnectPostgres
MySQL	MySQL + ConnectMySQL
Mongo	Mongo + ConnectMongo
Redis	Redis + ReadRedis / WriteRedis / ReadWriteRedis
Object storage	Bucket + PutObject / GetObject
Staging next to production	Environment
Config / API tokens	Config.redacted. Railway.Variable when Railway should own it
Cross-service env	Railway.ref
Your own domain	CustomDomain
Laptop access to Postgres	TcpProxy (or Postgres public: true)
Custom private DNS	PrivateNetwork
Trusted call between Services	Schemaless RPC — bindService / bindFunction, private mesh only

Where next

• Setup — create a Railway workspace, generate an account token, and connect alchemy.
• Tutorial — from empty directory to a Project running an HTTP Service with a mounted Volume and a Variable.
• Websites — Vite, Astro, Next.js, and other framework sites as a container Service.
• examples/railway-service — every resource and binding in one stack (Project, Environment, Variable, Volume, Postgres, MySQL, Redis, Bucket, TcpProxy, image Service, Effect Function, canvas cron Function, Effect Api + Worker, Railway.ref, canvas Group).
• Providers reference — generated API docs for every Railway resource Alchemy ships.