How do I deploy open-terminal on Railway?

You can deploy open-terminal on Railway by clicking the "Deploy Now" button on this page. Railway will automatically set up all the necessary services and configurations for you.

What are the system requirements?

Railway handles all the infrastructure requirements. You only need a web browser to deploy and manage your application.

Is this template free to use?

Yes, this template is free to use within your existing Railway account.

Can I customize this template?

Yes, you can fully customize this template. After deployment, you will have full control of what you've deployed in your Railway project.

How do I get support for this template?

You can get support through our community forum: open-terminal-bcf70e5b, or click "Get template help" for this template for more assistance.

Deploy and Host open-terminal on Railway

Open Terminal is a lightweight, self-hosted terminal environment for AI agents and automation tools. It gives models a real operating-system workspace to run commands, manage files, install packages, and execute code through a simple API. When paired with Open WebUI, it adds terminal access and file browsing directly inside the chat experience.

About Hosting open-terminal

Hosting open-terminal on Railway means deploying the official container image as an HTTP service, exposing its API, setting an API key for authentication, and optionally attaching persistent storage so files survive redeployments. Open Terminal’s Docker setup is the recommended mode and stores user files under /home/user, which makes a mounted volume especially useful for ongoing workspaces. Railway supports public container image deployments and persistent volumes, making it a strong fit for running Open Terminal without managing servers, reverse proxies, or infrastructure by hand.

Common Use Cases

Give Open WebUI agents a real terminal for coding, testing, and debugging repositories.
Process uploaded files such as CSVs, charts, media, or scripts in a persistent remote workspace.
Provide a shared terminal environment for team or admin-managed AI workflows.

Dependencies for open-terminal Hosting

A Docker-compatible deployment target that can run the official ghcr.io/open-webui/open-terminal image.
An OPEN_TERMINAL_API_KEY secret for authenticated access.
A persistent volume, recommended for preserving files stored in /home/user across restarts and redeployments.

Deployment Dependencies

Open WebUI Open Terminal documentation: https://docs.openwebui.com/features/extensibility/open-terminal/
Open Terminal GitHub repository: https://github.com/open-webui/open-terminal
Railway service documentation
Railway volume documentation

Implementation Details

A typical Railway setup uses the official container image, exposes port 8000, sets OPEN_TERMINAL_API_KEY, and mounts a volume to /home/user so the AI workspace persists. Open Terminal also supports extra package installation at startup through OPEN_TERMINAL_PACKAGES and OPEN_TERMINAL_PIP_PACKAGES if you want to extend the environment without building a custom image.

Example environment variables:

OPEN_TERMINAL_API_KEY=your-secret-key
OPEN_TERMINAL_PACKAGES="ffmpeg imagemagick"
OPEN_TERMINAL_PIP_PACKAGES="polars httpx"

Recommended volume mount path:

/home/user

Recommended container image:

ghcr.io/open-webui/open-terminal

Why Deploy open-terminal 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 open-terminal 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.