Deploy and Host Exponential on Railway

Exponential is an open-source workspace for running your work: projects and actions, goals and OKRs, meetings, decisions and a CRM, all linked together. AI features such as meeting summaries and semantic search are optional. This template gives you your own private install, with your data in your own database.

About Hosting Exponential

The template starts three services: the Exponential app, a scheduler that runs its background jobs on a timer, and Postgres with the pgvector extension for your data. Every secret is generated for you, and no API key is needed to get started. On each start the app applies any pending database migrations, so the first deploy takes a few minutes. When it is up, the app's logs show a one-time setup token: use it at your install's /setup page to become the admin. Email sign-in, OAuth and AI keys can be added later as variables on the app service.

Common Use Cases

A private project and task workspace for a team that wants to keep its own data
Goals and OKRs linked to the projects and actions that move them forward
Meeting notes, decisions and follow-ups kept in the same place as the work

Dependencies for Exponential Hosting

Postgres 16 with the pgvector extension (included: pgvector/pgvector:pg16)
The prebuilt Exponential app and scheduler images (ghcr.io/positonic/exponential-app, ghcr.io/positonic/exponential-scheduler), built from https://github.com/positonic/exponential

Implementation Details

Claim your install first. When the deploy finishes, open the app service's logs and find the block that starts This install has no admin yet. It shows your /setup link and a one-time setup token. Enter your email and the token there: you become the instance admin, and sign-up switches to invite-only. Do this straight away, because anyone with the token can claim the install.

Signing in again. Until you set up email, the admin's sign-in codes are written to the app's logs (AUTH_LOG_SIGN_IN_CODES=true), so anyone who can read those logs can sign in as the admin. Before inviting anyone, add SMTP_HOST, SMTP_PORT, SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASSWORD and EMAIL_FROM (or AUTH_POSTMARK_KEY) to the app service, which stops the logging. If you use a Google or Discord OAuth app instead, also set AUTH_LOG_SIGN_IN_CODES=false: OAuth alone doesn't stop codes going to the logs.

AI is optional. Add OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY to the app service and redeploy. The startup log lists which AI features are on.

Updating. The template uses the latest images. Redeploy the app and scheduler to update; migrations run when the app starts.

Why Deploy Exponential 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 Exponential 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.