Self-host on Railway

Five minutes, one variable, no terminal. The app provisions itself on first boot.

1. Create the project

   Go to railway.com → New Project → Deploy from GitHub repo → pick the Hired repository. Railway starts building immediately.

   The build will succeed, but the app will not start yet — it has nowhere to store anything, so you will see it crash and retry. That is expected; the next two steps fix it, and Railway redeploys on its own.

2. Add a database

   In the same project: + Create → Database → Add PostgreSQL.

   Railway names the service Postgres. Leave it alone; you never have to configure it.

3. Point the app at it

   Click your app service — not the Postgres one — then Variables → New Variable:

   Variable	Value
   DATABASE_URL	${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}

   Type it exactly as shown, ${{ }} included — Railway autocompletes it. It is a reference, so if the database credentials ever rotate, your app follows automatically.

   That is the only variable. Everything else is configured inside the app.

4. Give it a web address

   Settings → Networking → Generate Domain. You will get something like hired-production.up.railway.app.

5. Get your password from the logs

   On first boot the app creates your owner account and prints the credentials once.

   Open the Deploy Logs tab on your app service and scroll to the top of the latest deploy. Copy the password, sign in, then change your email and password from Settings.

   Database tables are created automatically on every boot — there is no migration step for you to run, now or after any future update.

6. Connect your AI

   Open Settings in the app. It opens on Connections, because this is the step that makes everything else work. You already have one waiting; hit Set up, pick whichever assistant you use, and the exact steps appear with the config already filled in with your URL.

   Per-client setup →

Optional variables

Variable	What it does
ADMIN_EMAIL	Use this address for the owner account instead of owner@localhost.
APP_PASSWORD	Use this as the owner’s first password instead of a generated one.
RESET_OWNER_PASSWORD	Set to 1 and redeploy to generate a fresh owner password and print it again. Remove the variable afterwards.

RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN is set by the platform, and the app uses it for the sign-in address it prints in the deploy log. Invitation links need no public URL either — the app falls back to the address the request came in on — but set Public URL in Admin → Configuration once a custom domain or a proxy sits in front of the app.

Deploy configuration

The repository carries a railway.json, so there is nothing to configure in the dashboard. It builds with Nixpacks, starts with prisma migrate deploy && next start, and health-checks /login with a 120-second timeout.

One-click PDF export does not work on a stock Railway deploy. Nixpacks’ image has no headless browser, so the PDF button reports that and points at the fallback: ⋯ → Open print view, then your browser’s Save as PDF with margins set to None. Same document, one more step.

How to get one-click PDF anyway →