Deploy and Host Paperclip on Railway

Paperclip is the open-source app for running a company of AI agents: hire Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or Gemini agents into an org chart, give them goals and budgets, approve their work and audit every run from one board. This template deploys it ready for the internet: you are the owner from the first second, and nobody can create an account without your invitation. It is a community-maintained template and is not affiliated with the Paperclip project.

About Hosting Paperclip

Paperclip is a Node.js server with a bundled web UI, backed by PostgreSQL. It runs agents as processes inside its own container, using the agent CLIs that ship in its official image, and keeps uploads, agent workspaces and run logs on disk.

A stock Paperclip on a public URL has two problems: someone has to become the first admin (either whoever signs up first, or an operator running a CLI command and copying an invite from the logs), and anyone who finds the URL can create an account. Paperclip's only switch against the second problem also breaks its invitation links.

This template creates your owner account from the email you enter and a generated password, and makes it the instance admin before the app answers on its URL. Sign-up is then allowed only from a live invitation link, so inviting teammates keeps working while walk-up sign-up is refused. Everything else runs from the official Paperclip image, pinned by digest and unmodified.

Common Use Cases

Keep a team of AI agents working on scheduled heartbeats around the clock, not only while your laptop is open
Put Claude Code and Codex agents on real tickets with per-agent budgets that stop runaway spend
Give your team one shared board to assign work to agents, approve actions and review every run
Run several AI "companies" side by side, each with its own goals, org chart and costs

Dependencies for Paperclip Hosting

PostgreSQL: included, on Railway's private network
RustFS (S3-compatible object storage) for uploads: included, private
An AI provider credential for your agents (optional at deploy time): an Anthropic key or Claude subscription token, an OpenAI key, or a Gemini key. You can also add keys later, per agent, inside Paperclip.

Deployment Dependencies

Paperclip (MIT): https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip
Paperclip documentation: https://docs.paperclip.ing
Template source, image and tests: https://github.com/youssefsiam38/paperclip-railway

Implementation Details

First sign-in: after the deploy turns green, open the paperclip service's Variables, copy ADMIN_PASSWORD, and sign in at the service's domain with the email you entered as ADMIN_EMAIL. Change the password in Paperclip's profile if you like; the variable is only the initial password.

Inviting teammates: in Paperclip, create a human invite and send the link. The invitee creates an account on that page. PAPERCLIP_SIGNUP_MODE can also be closed (nobody else can create an account) or open (upstream behaviour).

What's configured for you: authenticated + public mode, the public URL from your Railway domain, four generated signing and encryption secrets, database migrations on every start, per-client sign-in rate limiting behind Railway's proxy, a private RustFS bucket for uploads, a volume at /paperclip for agent workspaces and logs, and a private PostgreSQL. Paperclip listens on loopback behind a small Caddy front door that only adds the sign-up check.

Agents: agents run inside the Paperclip container. Railway has no nested containers, so there is no per-agent sandbox, and Paperclip passes its server environment on to agents; treat the ability to run agents like shell access to the service.

Custom domain: add it in Railway, then set PAPERCLIP_PUBLIC_URL to https://your.domain.

Tested on a live deployment of this template: owner sign-in, refused walk-up sign-up, the full invitation flow, file uploads, an agent run calling back into Paperclip, and a redeploy keeping everything.

Why Deploy Paperclip 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 Paperclip 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.