Railway with Node.js

Learn how to make Railway, Node.js, and Dotenv Vault work together. This tutorial assumes you have already created a .env file and synced it.

You can find a complete example repo here.

Set up Node.js for Railway

Set up your Node.js app to work with Railway.

// index.js
const http = require('http')
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 5000

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.write(`Hello ${process.env.HELLO}`)
  res.end()
})

server.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server running on ${PORT}`)
})

example

Run railway up.

$ railway up

Require dotenv-vault-core

Install dotenv-vault-core.

npm install dotenv-vault-core --save

Require it as early as possible in your Node.js application.

// index.js
require('dotenv-vault-core').config()
console.log(process.env) // for debugging purposes. remove when ready.

const http = require('http')
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 5000

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.write(`Hello ${process.env.HELLO}`)
  res.end()
})

server.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server running on ${PORT}`)
})

example

Run dotenv-vault build

Run npx dotenv-vault build to build your encrypted .env.vault file.

$ npx dotenv-vault build

Get DOTENV_KEY

Run npx dotenv-vault keys production.

$ npx dotenv-vault keys production
remote:   Listing .env.vault decryption keys... done

dotenv://:[email protected]/vault/.env.vault?environment=production

Set DOTENV_KEY

Visit your Railway Project’s Environment Variables.

Set DOTENV_KEY to the value returned in step 4.

Commit and push

That’s it!

Commit those changes safely to code and deploy to Railway.

When the build runs, it will recognize the DOTENV_KEY, decrypt the .env.vault file, and load the production environment variables to ENV. If a DOTENV_KEY is not set (like during development on your local machine) it will fall back to regular dotenv.