--- title: "Easy agent setup, railway scale TUI, unified template search" date: 2026-05-08 number: 0289 url: https://railway.com/changelog/2026-05-08-easy-agent-setup --- # Easy agent setup, railway scale TUI, unified template search If your agent can deploy services, set variables, and read logs, it should also be able to discover templates and scale replicas on its own. This week, one command sets up your CLI, agent skills, and MCP server in one shot. Template search now works the same way everywhere: dashboard, canvas, command palette, and CLI all share one backend. And `railway scale` gets a real interactive UI, so you or your agent can change replica counts without going into the Railway Dashboard. Let's get into it! 🚄 ## Easy agent setup [Video: One-shot agent setup] Getting an editor or terminal-based agent talking to Railway used to mean three steps: install the Railway CLI, install the MCP server, drop in the agent skills. Three steps, three docs pages, three places to miss a step. Now there's one command: ```bash bash <(curl -fsSL railway.com/install.sh) --agents -y ``` It installs the Railway CLI, configures Railway's agent skills, and registers the [Railway MCP server](https://docs.railway.com/cli/mcp) with your editor in one shot. If the CLI is already installed, two new subcommands cover the rest: - `railway setup agents` ([docs](https://docs.railway.com/cli/setup)) configures the CLI MCP, agent skills, and editor integration. Pass `--remote` to point at the [remote MCP server](https://railway.com/mcp) instead of the local one, and `-y` to accept defaults non-interactively. - `railway mcp install` (or `railway mcp install --remote`) ([docs](https://docs.railway.com/cli/mcp#subcommands)) wires up only the MCP server. We also added a [Railway for Agents](https://docs.railway.com/agents) section to the docs that ties everything together: the CLI, the MCP server, agent skills, and the dashboard Agent. Try it out and let us know what you think on [Central Station](https://station.railway.com/new?type=feedback). ## Railway scale, for you or your agent [Video: Overhauled `railway scale` command ] `railway scale` got a full overhaul. Running it in a terminal opens an interactive region picker where you set replica counts per region and see a preview before applying. Region names show up as `us-west`, `eu-west`, and `southeast-asia` instead of opaque IDs, and the available list matches what the dashboard offers. For scripts and agents, the non-interactive form takes positional pairs: ```bash railway scale eu-west=2 us-east=1 ``` Under the hood, scaling now goes through the same config-patch flow the dashboard uses, so partial updates no longer overwrite regions you didn't pass. The same capability is exposed as an MCP tool in the [local MCP server](https://docs.railway.com/cli/mcp), so the Railway Agent (in the dashboard or the CLI) can scale services on your behalf when it makes sense. Check out the [docs](https://docs.railway.com/cli/scale) and let us know what you think on [Central Station](https://station.railway.com/new?type=feedback). ## Unified template search Template search hasn't been consistent across Railway. The marketplace, canvas, chat, and the command palette each ran their own search with different fields and ranking, so the same query could surface different templates depending on where you looked. Now they all share the same backend. Whether you search from the marketplace, canvas, chat, or the command palette, you'll get the same ranked results. Typos like `postgress` resolve to `postgres`, and aliases like `mongo` find MongoDB. The CLI gets the same search too. Run `railway templates search` in a terminal to open a command-palette TUI that searches as you type, or `railway templates search postgres` to seed the picker with a query. [Video: Template search in the Railway CLI] Outside a TTY (CI, agents, scripts), the command prints text or `--json` for piping, with a cursor for the next page when more results are available. Selecting a template prints its name, code, and the next command to run, no deploys until you ask for one. Check out the [docs](https://docs.railway.com/cli/templates) and let us know what you think on [Central Station](https://station.railway.com/new?type=feedback). ## Fixes and improvements - We improved `railway status` to print a per-service summary card with resource limits, region, replica counts, recent deployment activity, and project bucket details. Think of it as a text-based version of the Railway canvas, giving you and your agent more context about the state of your project in a single command. Previously, `railway status` printed three lines: project name, environment, and the linked service. - We fixed CLI project, environment, and function commands erroring opaquely on workspaces with restricted environments. The CLI now recognizes restricted environments and surfaces a clear message when you try to operate on one, instead of failing as if the environment didn't exist. - We fixed missing styles on nodes in the template editor canvas. Nodes now render with the same visuals as they do on the project canvas. - We fixed custom columns added in environment logs disappearing from inline attributes in the per-deployment and observability log views. Custom columns persist across all log views now. - We fixed the dashboard's Deleted view showing the wrong projects. The list also refreshes automatically after you schedule, cancel, or force-delete a project, instead of staying stale until you reload. - We improved the error message for deploys that fail because the image's working directory doesn't exist. The deploy fails fast with a clearer error now, instead of looping retries until it timed out. - We fixed deploys hanging instead of failing cleanly when hitting container start errors like image not found, unauthorized, or volume conflicts. These errors surface immediately now.