--- title: "Deploy PI WEB | (Just Updated) Pi Coding Agent In Your Browser, Password Protected" description: "Pi Coding Agent web UI: basic-auth enforced, workspaces survive redeploys" category: "AI/ML" url: https://railway.com/deploy/pi-web-or-just-updated-pi-coding-agent-i --- # Deploy PI WEB | (Just Updated) Pi Coding Agent In Your Browser, Password Protected Pi Coding Agent web UI: basic-auth enforced, workspaces survive redeploys **[Deploy PI WEB | (Just Updated) Pi Coding Agent In Your Browser, Password Protected on Railway](https://railway.com/template/pi-web-or-just-updated-pi-coding-agent-i)** - **Creator:** SuperSlowSloth - **Category:** AI/ML ## Template content ### pi-web - **Image:** ghcr.io/bon5co/pi-web-railway@sha256:3b7175e7f38150b6ba9b6e01ca8828c0c71961ee3710496550980ce5a8e95633 - **Health check:** /healthz - **Public domain:** Yes ## Documentation # Deploy and Host PI WEB on Railway [PI WEB](https://github.com/jmfederico/pi-web) is a web UI for the [Pi Coding Agent](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent). It keeps agent sessions alive in real workspaces — projects, files, interactive terminals, and long-running sessions — and reaches all of it from a browser tab, including a phone. This template deploys it as one Railway service, behind a password, with everything it writes on a volume. ## About Hosting PI WEB PI WEB is a Node application, and hosting it well takes three things it does not do for you. **It ships no authentication.** This is not an oversight and upstream is explicit about it in its own README: *"It is not a sandbox, permission system, or multi-tenant platform. Do not expose it directly to the public internet without a trusted network, firewall, VPN, SSH tunnel, or authenticated reverse proxy."* A Railway service has a public URL, and PI WEB's surface includes interactive terminals and read/write access to the container's filesystem. Deployed bare, it is a remotely drivable shell for anyone who finds the URL. So this template does what upstream asks for. The image carries a Caddy reverse proxy that enforces HTTP basic auth on the UI, on every `/api` route, and on the WebSocket bridge that carries terminals and sessions. The password is generated for you as a Railway secret at deploy time, and the container **refuses to start** if it is unset or shorter than 12 characters — there is no window in which an unprotected instance is reachable. Verified on the live deploy: anonymous requests to `/`, `/api/projects`, `/api/machines` and the WebSocket upgrade all return `401`; the same requests with the password return `200` and `101`. **It needs the agent, and the tools, in the same container.** A PI WEB with no agent installed is a half-product. The image installs Pi Coding Agent as PI WEB's npm peer (`0.84.2`, satisfying the `>=0.84.0` requirement) and links its `pi` binary onto the path, alongside git, a compiler toolchain, Python, ripgrep and jq — the things an agent reaches for in a real repository. **Its state is all on disk.** Workspaces, cloned repositories, uncommitted edits, session history, and your Pi provider login are files, not database rows. Without a volume every one of them is erased by the next redeploy. This template mounts a volume at `/data` and points every writable path at it: `HOME`, the PI WEB data directory, the Pi agent directory, and the workspace root. Verified by writing a file into a workspace, redeploying the service, and reading the same bytes back afterwards. **Resources.** Measured idle at **208 MB** under a 1 GB cap, so it starts on the Free (0.5 GB) and Trial (1 GB) plans. Headroom is what you will want in practice: a coding agent running `npm install` or a compile inside its workspace uses far more than the UI does, so give it a Hobby plan service if you intend to build anything substantial in it. ## Why Deploy PI WEB on Railway? Railway supplies exactly the pieces PI WEB's design assumes and a laptop does not: an address that does not change, a machine that stays up when your browser does not, and a disk that outlives the container. That matters because the product's whole claim is session persistence. Verified on this template: a 25-second command started over the API with the client immediately disconnected ran to completion and wrote its output anyway, and its terminal was still listed on reconnect. Start a refactor on a desktop, close the lid, and pick it up from a phone. ## Common Use Cases - A coding agent that is always on, reachable from any browser, without leaving a laptop awake. - Long-running agent work — migrations, refactors, test suites — that must not die when the tab closes or the connection drops. - A shared, password-protected dev box for repositories you want an agent working in continuously. - Driving an agent from a phone or tablet, where a terminal emulator is not a realistic option. ## Dependencies for PI WEB - **Pi Coding Agent** `0.84.2` — included in the image, no separate install. - **A model provider account** — sign in from PI WEB's own auth dialog after you log in. Pi stores its credentials under `/data/pi-agent`, on the volume, so that login survives redeploys. There is no API-key variable to fill in on the deploy form. ### Deployment Dependencies - [PI WEB](https://github.com/jmfederico/pi-web) — MIT. - [Pi Coding Agent](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent). - Wrapper image and its source: [bon5co/pi-web-railway](https://github.com/bon5co/pi-web-railway), published as `ghcr.io/bon5co/pi-web-railway` and pinned by digest in this template. - A volume mounted at `/data` — included in the template. ### Deployment Variables | Variable | Required | Purpose | |---|---|---| | `PI_WEB_PASSWORD` | **yes** | The basic-auth password. Generated for you as a Railway secret; the container refuses to boot without it. | | `PI_WEB_USERNAME` | no | Basic-auth user. Baked into the image as `admin`; set it only if you want a different one. | Log in at the service URL with `admin` and the generated password, then sign in to your model provider from inside PI WEB. ## Similar templates - [Chat Chat](https://railway.com/deploy/-WWW5r) — Chat Chat, your own unified chat and search to AI platform. - [stella](https://railway.com/deploy/stella) — Self-host stella with web, API, Postgres, Redis, and object storage. - [Hermes Agent | OpenClaw Alternative with Dashboard](https://railway.com/deploy/hermes-agent-or-openclaw-alternative-wit) — Self-Hosted Hermes AI Agent for Telegram, Discord & Slack Open this page in a browser: https://railway.com/deploy/pi-web-or-just-updated-pi-coding-agent-i