---
title: "Deploy Eve Agent Starter — Build AI Agents on Railway"
description: "Production-ready starter for AI agents with Vercel Eve. One-key deploy."
category: "Starters"
url: https://railway.com/deploy/eve-agent-starter
---

# Deploy Eve Agent Starter — Build AI Agents on Railway

Production-ready starter for AI agents with Vercel Eve. One-key deploy.

**[Deploy Eve Agent Starter — Build AI Agents on Railway on Railway](https://railway.com/template/eve-agent-starter)**

Machine-readable deploy manifest (JSON, validated by TemplateCI): https://railway.com/deploy/eve-agent-starter/manifest.json

- **Creator:** SilverBanana
- **Category:** Starters
- **Total deploys:** 2

## Template content

### Eve Agent Starter http://img.icons8.com/ios_filled/1200/vercel.jpg

- **Source:** tresdoce/eve-agent-starter
- **Public domain:** Yes

## Documentation

# Deploy and Host Eve Agent Starter on Railway

Eve Agent Starter is a production-ready boilerplate for building conversational AI agents with
Vercel's Eve framework. Skip the scaffolding — this template ships a working support-agent example
that answers questions from a knowledge base and escalates to a ticket when it can't, so you start
from a running agent instead of an empty repo. Node 24, pnpm, and Railpack are pre-configured; add
your OpenAI key and deploy.

Self-host on Railway for ~$5/month plus your OpenAI usage — a clean starting point for building and
shipping custom AI agents on infrastructure you own, with no boilerplate to write first.

---

## What This Template Deploys

| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| **Eve Agent (Node 24)** | The agent server built on Vercel's Eve framework — a working FAQ/support agent example with knowledge-base answers and ticket escalation, ready to extend |

Single service, built with pnpm and Railpack. One required variable (`OPENAI_API_KEY`) gets you a
running agent. Fork it, replace the example logic with your own tools and flows, and redeploy — the
template is a foundation to build on, not a fixed app.

---

## About Hosting Eve Agent Starter

Building a conversational AI agent usually starts with days of boilerplate — wiring the framework,
the LLM connection, a message loop, and a deployment pipeline before you write a line of your own
agent logic. This starter removes that: it's a working Eve agent you deploy first and customize
second, with the runtime, package manager, and build already configured for Railway.

Railway builds and serves it automatically with HTTPS and zero config beyond your OpenAI key. The
included support-agent example shows the framework's patterns — knowledge-base retrieval and ticket
escalation — which you replace with your own domain logic.

Typical cost: **~$5/month** on Railway's Hobby plan for the agent service, plus OpenAI API usage.
It's an open starter — you pay only compute and your own tokens, with full control over the code.

---

## Deploy in Under 3 Minutes

1. Click **Deploy on Railway** — the Eve agent builds automatically with Railpack (~2 minutes)
2. Set `OPENAI_API_KEY` in the Variables tab
3. Open your Railway URL — the example support agent is running
4. Fork the repo and replace the example logic with your own agent tools, prompts, and flows
5. Push and redeploy — Railway rebuilds your customized agent

No boilerplate. No framework wiring. No deployment setup from scratch.

---

## Common Use Cases

- **Starting point for a custom AI agent** — deploy a working Eve agent and build your own logic
  on top instead of scaffolding a project from an empty repo
- **Customer support and FAQ agent** — the included example answers from a knowledge base and
  escalates to a ticket; adapt it to your own docs and support workflow
- **Internal tools and workflow agents** — extend the starter with custom tools that call your
  APIs, databases, or services for internal automation
- **Learning the Eve framework** — a runnable reference implementation showing Eve's agent
  patterns, faster to learn from than docs alone
- **Rapid agent prototyping** — spin up a deployed agent to test an idea end-to-end, then iterate
  on the live instance rather than building local scaffolding first
- **Multi-tool conversational assistants** — build agents that combine knowledge retrieval,
  tool-calling, and escalation flows using the framework's primitives

---

## Configuration

| Variable | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `OPENAI_API_KEY` | ✅ Required | Your OpenAI API key — powers the agent's language model |
| `PORT` | Auto-set | Railway injects the port automatically |

> One variable gets you a running agent. As you extend the starter with your own tools and
> integrations, add their credentials as further Railway variables. Verify additional variable
> names against the template repository as you build on it.

---

## Eve Agent Starter vs. Alternatives

| | Eve Starter (Railway) | Build from scratch | Hosted agent SaaS | No-code bot builder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Setup time** | ✅ Minutes | ❌ Days of boilerplate | ✅ Fast | ✅ Fast |
| **Full code control** | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ Locked platform | ❌ Limited |
| **Self-hosted / own data** | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ SaaS servers | ❌ SaaS servers |
| **Bring your own model** | ✅ OpenAI key | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Fixed | ⚠️ Fixed |
| **Working example included** | ✅ Support agent | ❌ None | ✅ Templates | ✅ Templates |
| **Per-message fees** | ✅ None (own tokens) | ✅ None | ❌ Usually | ❌ Usually |
| **Extensible in code** | ✅ Fully | ✅ Fully | ⚠️ Limited | ❌ No |

---

## Dependencies for Eve Agent Starter Hosting

- Railway account — Hobby plan (~$5/month) for the agent service
- An OpenAI API key for the agent's language model
- Familiarity with Node.js/TypeScript to extend the starter with your own logic

### Deployment Dependencies

- [Vercel Eve Framework](https://github.com/vercel/eve) — the agent framework this starter uses
- [OpenAI API Keys](https://platform.openai.com/api-keys) — create your API key
- [Railpack](https://railpack.com) — the Railway build system used here
- [Railway Documentation](https://docs.railway.com) — deployment and variables

### Implementation Details

This template deploys an Eve-framework agent on Node 24, built with pnpm via Railpack, served over
Railway's HTTPS. It ships a working support-agent example — knowledge-base answers plus ticket
escalation — that demonstrates the framework's patterns and gives you a running baseline.

The template is a starter, not a fixed application: fork the repository, replace the example agent
logic with your own tools, prompts, and integrations, and redeploy. `OPENAI_API_KEY` is the only
required variable to get the baseline running; add more as you extend it. Because it's your code on
your Railway instance, you control the model, the logic, and the data end to end.

---

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Is this a finished app or a starting point?**
It's a starter template — a production-ready boilerplate you build on, not a fixed app. It deploys
a working support-agent example so you start from a running agent, then fork it and replace the
logic with your own tools and flows.

**Do I need an OpenAI key?**
Yes. The agent uses OpenAI's models, so set `OPENAI_API_KEY` to deploy. You pay only for your own
token usage — there are no per-message platform fees on top.

**What is Vercel Eve?**
Eve is Vercel's framework for building conversational AI agents. This starter gives you a runnable
Eve project pre-configured for Railway, so you can learn the framework from working code and extend
it rather than scaffolding from scratch.

**How do I customize the agent?**
Fork the repository, edit the agent logic — prompts, tools, knowledge sources, escalation rules —
and redeploy to Railway. The included support agent is a reference you adapt to your own use case.

**Do I need to know how to code?**
Yes. This is a developer starter — extending it requires Node.js/TypeScript familiarity. It's
built for developers who want a running foundation to build a custom agent on, not a no-code bot
builder.

**What can I build with it?**
Customer support agents, internal workflow assistants, FAQ bots, and multi-tool conversational
agents — anything Eve's framework supports. The starter handles the plumbing so you focus on your
agent's specific behavior.

---

## Why Deploy and Host Eve Agent Starter 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 the Eve Agent Starter on Railway, you get a production-ready foundation for building
conversational AI agents — a working example, pre-configured runtime, and one-variable setup — at
~$5/month plus your own token usage, with full control over your agent's code and data.

## Similar templates

- [open-excalidraw](https://railway.com/deploy/open-excalidraw) — Self-hostable collaborative drawing built on Excalidraw
- [caring-vibrancy](https://railway.com/deploy/caring-vibrancy) — Deploy and Host caring-vibrancy with Railway
- [Appsmith](https://railway.com/deploy/appsmith-1) — Low-code platform for internal tools, dashboards, and admin panels.

Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/eve-agent-starter