Deploy and Host Architecture Sketch Desk with Excalidraw on Railway

A login-gated sketching desk for architecture reviews and diagrams.

About Hosting Architecture Sketch Desk with Excalidraw

Consultants and engineering teams sketching a system during review.

Sign in through the operator gateway, draw a system map, and export .excalidraw and SVG/PNG files into your project records. Browser-local state is useful for drafts, not the canonical copy.

Included services and storage

Service	Persistent storage	Public access
App	None; container state is disposable	Private network only
Gateway	None; container state is disposable	HTTPS domain

First deployment

Review required inputs in the deploy form and supply your own administrator email where requested.
Deploy the services and wait for the application and any database migrations to finish.
Open the generated HTTPS domain and follow the workflow above.
For the first browser prompt use username operator and the generated Gateway.GATEWAY_PASSWORD from Railway variables. App-specific accounts, where present, remain separate. The App service has no public domain.

Why Deploy Architecture Sketch Desk with Excalidraw on Railway

The definition supplies an HTTPS endpoint, generated credentials where supported and explicit storage paths. PostgreSQL, when present, stays private. Public upstream image manifests are locked to immutable digests so an upstream tag change does not silently replace a running version.

Common Use Cases

Sketch an integration map.
Draw a client workshop diagram.
Review a deployment architecture.

Dependencies for Architecture Sketch Desk with Excalidraw

Upstream application and its documentation. The upstream authors own the application and its license. This recipe does not claim application authorship or official endorsement.
Caddy gateway using generated Basic authentication and WebSocket-capable reverse proxying.
A Railway plan with resources sufficient for these services. Hosting, storage and outbound traffic are billed by Railway; no software subscription, bank connection, SMTP account or provider credit is included.

Operational limits and backups

This deploys the editor frontend only. A self-hosted collaboration server, account sync and server-side drawing storage are not included. Do not assume built-in sharing features use this Railway instance as their backend; use file exports for a controlled workflow.

Run one replica for volume-backed applications. Schedule volume backups and export important application data; a persistent volume is not a backup. Keep generated secrets with the backups and review upstream migration notes before changing the pinned image. Credentials cannot all be rotated by changing first-run environment variables after accounts already exist.

Validation status

Prepared on 2026-10-18 from upstream installation documentation and public image manifests. Railway schema, variable references and publication metadata are checked before publication. Application runtime boot checks were not performed. This is an independently authored deployment recipe for existing software, not a claim of novel software, audited security or Railway partner verification.

Deploy this recipe

Review the required inputs and hosting resource costs before deploying.

Related deployment recipes

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Ubuntu Browser Terminal Starter — Password-protected Ubuntu web terminal with a persistent workspace volume.
Ubuntu SSH and AI CLI Starter — SSH development container with generated credentials and durable workspace.

These are separate deployments; no preconfigured integration between the applications is implied.

Disclosure: this template is maintained independently. Its maintainer may earn Railway usage kickbacks when other people deploy it. Railway bills hosting separately; no paid software subscription or provider credits are included.