Deploy and Host Nerve on Railway

Nerve is an open-source visual command center for securely observing and operating OpenClaw and Hermes agent fleets. This template deploys the Nerve web application with PostgreSQL persistence, encrypted runtime credentials, database migrations, and health checks.

About Hosting Nerve

Nerve runs as a self-hosted Next.js control plane. Railway builds the repository Dockerfile, runs additive PostgreSQL migrations before each release, and monitors /api/health. Runtime credentials are encrypted before storage and never returned to the browser.

After deployment, open the generated Nerve domain and unlock the command center with the access token configured in NERVE_ADMIN_TOKEN or a role-scoped token from NERVE_ACCESS_KEYS.

Why Deploy Nerve on Railway

One-click application and PostgreSQL provisioning
Docker-based reproducible builds
Automatic database migrations before deploy
Readiness checks for authentication, database, and encryption configuration
Automatic deploys from the protected main branch
Managed domains, logs, backups, and restart policies

Common Use Cases

Monitor OpenClaw and Hermes agents from one fleet map
Drill into agent runs, progress, traces, timing, and model usage
Ask agents questions and dispatch audited operator actions
Stop or reconcile agent work with explicit role permissions
Install or assign skills to individual agents
Operate a private agent fleet without using each runtime's native dashboard

Dependencies for Nerve

Nerve requires a PostgreSQL database and secure, independently generated secrets. Agent runtimes remain separate services and connect through their public HTTPS or WebSocket endpoints.

Deployment Dependencies

PostgreSQL 15 or newer, provided by the template
DATABASE_URL, injected from the PostgreSQL service
NERVE_ENCRYPTION_KEY, generated with openssl rand -base64 32
NERVE_SESSION_SECRET, generated with openssl rand -base64 48
NERVE_ADMIN_TOKEN, generated with openssl rand -base64 32
NERVE_PUBLIC_URL, set to the generated Railway application origin
Optional NERVE_ACCESS_KEYS JSON for separate viewer, operator, and admin credentials
Optional NERVE_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORKS=true only for trusted private-network runtime targets

See the project documentation for OpenClaw pairing, Hermes API setup, credential rotation, backup, restore, and incident procedures.