Deploy and Host Outpost on Railway

Outpost is a private, browser-based FreeCAD workstation — no local installation required. Sign in with your own GitHub account and design inside a full CAD session streamed straight to your browser tab. Your work saves directly to a git repository you own, so your files stay usable outside the browser too.

About Hosting Outpost

Hosting Outpost means running one Railway service: a small Go authentication shim (the gatekeeper) sitting in front of a containerized FreeCAD desktop, streamed over WebSocket. The gatekeeper handles GitHub device-flow sign-in, pins access to a single GitHub account you specify, and hands your session's token straight to the CAD environment's git integration — one login doubles as your git credential. The first deploy takes a few minutes, since Railway is building and setting up a full FreeCAD environment from scratch; every deploy after that is fast. Because your files live in a git repo, not on the server, the running instance itself is fully disposable.

Common Use Cases

• A personal CAD workstation reachable from any device — laptop, tablet, even a phone — without installing FreeCAD locally
• Hobbyists and makers who want real version history on their designs without learning git directly
• A disposable, always-current CAD environment for occasional projects, so you're not maintaining a permanent workstation just for the times you need it

Dependencies for Outpost Hosting

• A GitHub account — used both to sign in and as the home for your saved design files
• A Railway account with a payment method on file (Hobby plan covers this comfortably)

Deployment Dependencies

• Outpost repository — source, Dockerfile, and full documentation
• GitPDM — the git-native version control layer Outpost is built on
• FreeCAD — the CAD application itself
• Deploy guide — a non-technical, step-by-step walkthrough

Implementation Details

files

• A Railway account with a payment method on file (Hobby plan covers this comfortably)

Deployment Dependencies

• Outpost repository — source, Dockerfile, and full documentation
• GitPDM — the git-native version control layer Outpost is built on
• FreeCAD — the CAD application itself
• Deploy guide — a non-technical, step-by-step walkthrough

Implementation Details

The only field you need to fill in below is ALLOWED_GITHUB_USER — your GitHub username. This is the identity check that keeps your workspace private: anyone who signs in with a different GitHub account is turned away automatically, no matter who else has the deployment URL.

Why Deploy Outpost 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 Outpost 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.