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Railway is the easiest way to deploy tinykit. One click, automatic HTTPS, and persistent storage included.

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One-Click Deploy

Deploy to Railway

Click to deploy tinykit to Railway in under 5 minutes.

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What You’ll Need

  1. A Railway account (free tier available)
  2. An AI API key from one of:

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Step-by-Step Setup

1

Click Deploy Button

Click the “Deploy to Railway” button above, or go to the tinykit Railway template.
2

Configure Environment Variables

Railway will prompt you to set environment variables:Example configuration:
3

Deploy

Click “Deploy” and wait 2-3 minutes for the build to complete.
4

Access Your Instance

Once deployed, Railway provides a URL like your-app.railway.app.
  • Builder: your-app.railway.app/tinykit
  • Production apps: your-app.railway.app/

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Adding Custom Domains

1

Open Railway Settings

Go to your Railway project → Settings → Domains
2

Add Domain

Click “Add Domain” and enter your domain (e.g., app.yourdomain.com)
3

Configure DNS

Add a CNAME record pointing to your Railway URL:
4

Wait for SSL

Railway automatically provisions SSL certificates. This takes 1-5 minutes.
You can add multiple domains to serve different apps. Each domain can point to a different tinykit project via domain routing.

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Persistent Storage

Railway automatically persists the pocketbase/pb_data directory. Your data survives:
  • Redeploys
  • Restarts
  • Sleep/wake cycles
Railway’s free tier has storage limits. For production apps with significant data, consider upgrading to a paid plan.

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Costs

Plus your AI API costs (typically $3-10/month for casual use).

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Updating Your Deployment

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Automatic Updates

Fork the tinykit repository and connect it to Railway for automatic deployments on push.

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Manual Updates

  1. Go to your Railway project
  2. Click “Redeploy” to pull the latest changes

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Environment Variables Reference

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Troubleshooting

Check that your POCKETBASE_ADMIN_EMAIL and POCKETBASE_ADMIN_PASSWORD are set. The password must be at least 8 characters.
Verify your LLM_API_KEY is correct and has credits. Check the Railway logs for specific error messages.
Wait 5-10 minutes for SSL provisioning. If it persists, verify your DNS records are correct.
Railway should persist /pocketbase/pb_data. If data is lost, check that you haven’t accidentally removed the volume in Railway settings.
Railway’s free tier sleeps after inactivity. The first request after sleep takes 10-20 seconds. Upgrade to a paid plan for always-on performance.

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Logs and Monitoring

Access logs from the Railway dashboard:
  1. Go to your project
  2. Click on the service
  3. View “Deployments” for build logs
  4. View “Logs” for runtime logs
Look for:
  • Starting Pocketbase... → Database startup
  • Pocketbase is ready! → Database ready
  • Starting SvelteKit server... → App startup