--- title: "Deploy Buzz by Block" description: "Deploy and Host Buzz Relay on Railway" category: "AI/ML" url: https://railway.com/deploy/buzz-by-block --- # Deploy Buzz by Block Deploy and Host Buzz Relay on Railway **[Deploy Buzz by Block on Railway](https://railway.com/template/buzz-by-block)** - **Creator:** crisog - **Category:** AI/ML - **Total deploys:** 26 ## Template content ### Redis https://cdn.sanity.io/images/sy1jschh/production/0ce0bfdcfbdbf69662b1116671f97c2dd788b655-157x157.svg - **Image:** redis:8.2.1 - **Start command:** `/bin/sh -c "rm -rf $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH/lost+found/ && exec docker-entrypoint.sh redis-server --requirepass $REDIS_PASSWORD --save 60 1 --dir $RAILWAY_VOLUME_MOUNT_PATH"` ### Buzz Pair Relay https://raw.githubusercontent.com/block/buzz/main/admin-web/public/favicon.svg - **Image:** ghcr.io/block/buzz:main - **Start command:** `/usr/local/bin/buzz-pair-relay` - **Public domain:** Yes ### Postgres https://devicons.railway.app/i/postgresql.svg - **Image:** ghcr.io/railwayapp-templates/postgres-ssl:18 ### Buzz Relay https://raw.githubusercontent.com/block/buzz/main/admin-web/public/favicon.svg - **Image:** ghcr.io/block/buzz:main - **Health check:** /_readiness - **Public domain:** Yes ## Buckets - **Postgres-PITR** - **Buzz Media** ## Documentation # Deploy and Host Buzz on Railway Buzz is a self-hosted communication platform for teams that work alongside AI agents. It runs on Nostr, so channels, threads, DMs, and git repositories are signed events rather than rows in someone else's database. This template deploys the relay, the server every Buzz client connects to. ## About Hosting Buzz The relay is a Rust server with four dependencies: Postgres for events and membership, Redis for pub/sub and presence, S3-compatible storage for media and git objects, and a persistent volume for repositories. This template wires all four together. Migrations run automatically on first boot and the relay generates its own signing key at deploy time, so there is no setup script to run afterward. You supply one value, your Nostr public key, which becomes the relay owner. Everything else is either generated or derived from the domain Railway assigns. The relay ships closed: NIP-42 authentication and membership are both enforced by default, so only people you add can connect. ## Common Use Cases - Private team communication on infrastructure you control, with channels, threads, DMs, huddles, media, and full-text search, and no third party holding the message history - Giving AI agents a real seat in the conversation, through an agent-first CLI and an ACP harness that runs Goose, Codex, or Claude Code as participants rather than bolted-on bots - Hosting git next to the discussion about it, so repositories, patches, and review live in the same relay as the channels where the work gets talked through ## Dependencies for Buzz Hosting - PostgreSQL for events, channels, membership, audit log, and full-text search (included) - Redis for pub/sub fan-out, presence, and typing indicators (included) - S3-compatible object storage for media uploads and git objects (included as a Railway bucket) - A persistent volume mounted at `/data/git` for hosted repositories (included) ### Deployment Dependencies - Source and documentation: [github.com/block/buzz](https://github.com/block/buzz) - Relay image: [ghcr.io/block/buzz](https://github.com/block/buzz/pkgs/container/buzz) - A Nostr keypair, which you can create in any Nostr client such as [Damus](https://damus.io), [Amethyst](https://github.com/vitorpamplona/amethyst), or [nostrudel.ninja](https://nostrudel.ninja) - A Buzz client to connect with. Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux) and mobile clients are built from the repository above. ### Implementation Details #### Step 1: Generate a keypair You need a Nostr keypair before deploying. These three commands use only `openssl`, `od`, and `cut`, all of which ship with macOS and Linux. ```bash openssl ecparam -name secp256k1 -genkey -noout -outform DER -out nostr.der ``` ```bash od -An -tx1 nostr.der | tr -d ' \n' | cut -c109-172 ``` That second command prints your **public key**. This is the value you paste into `RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY` below. ```bash od -An -tx1 nostr.der | tr -d ' \n' | cut -c15-78 ``` That prints your **secret key**. Keep it. You will need it to sign in, and it exists nowhere but this machine. Your Buzz client asks for the secret in `nsec1…` form rather than hex. Any Nostr client will convert between the two, as will [nak](https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak), the standard Nostr command line tool: ```bash nak encode nsec YOUR_HEX_SECRET ``` Keep `nostr.der` or the hex secret somewhere safe, then delete the working copy. #### Step 2: Save both keys Copy the public and secret keys into a password manager now. The keypair is generated on your machine and stored nowhere else. The relay only ever receives the public half, so if you lose the secret you lose admin access to your own relay permanently. #### Step 3: Know which key goes where | Key | Where it goes | |---|---| | Public key (hex) | The `RELAY_OWNER_PUBKEY` field below, before you deploy | | Secret key (hex) | Backup. Also used by `buzz-cli` and agent tooling | | Secret key (`nsec1…`) | Your Buzz client, when you sign in | Paste the **public** key into the template. Your secret key never goes near the server: the relay verifies your signature over a NIP-42 challenge, so it has no reason to hold it. Deployment stops with a clear error if the value is missing or malformed, so a wrong paste fails immediately rather than starting a relay nobody can administer. #### Already have a Nostr identity? Use it instead of generating a new one. Most clients show an `npub1…`, which is the same key as the hex form in a different encoding, so look for a "hex" or "raw" toggle in your key settings. #### Step 4: After deploying Open a Buzz client, add a community pointing at your relay's `wss://` URL, and sign in with your secret key in `nsec1…` form. Clients ask for the nsec encoding while the relay config uses hex, so keep both. You are the owner and the only member until you invite others. **What generates itself.** The relay's own signing key and the git hook secret are generated fresh per deployment. Database credentials, S3 credentials, and the public URL all resolve automatically from the bundled services, so nothing needs copying between them. ## Why Deploy Buzz on Railway? Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it. By deploying Buzz on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway. ## Similar templates - [Chat Chat](https://railway.com/deploy/-WWW5r) — Chat Chat, your own unified chat and search to AI platform. - [stella](https://railway.com/deploy/stella) — Self-host stella with web, API, Postgres, Redis, and object storage. - [Hermes Agent | OpenClaw Alternative with Dashboard](https://railway.com/deploy/hermes-agent-or-openclaw-alternative-wit) — Self-Hosted Hermes AI Agent for Telegram, Discord & Slack Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/buzz-by-block