Deploy and Host Ren Publications on Railway

Ren Publications is a self-hosted editorial archive for papers, research, articles, essays, notes, talks, and other long-form work. One Node service serves the Next.js interface and same-origin Express API.

About Hosting Ren Publications

The template provisions the application, PostgreSQL for durable content and analytics, and a Railway Bucket for uploaded media. The app runs database migrations before each deployment and exposes /api/health for Railway health checks.

After deployment, open the generated Railway domain. A first-run onboarding flow creates the single author profile, site identity, visual theme, and admin passphrase. The starter passphrase shown by the app is only a convenience and should be replaced during onboarding.

Why Deploy Ren Publications on Railway

Railway keeps the web application, API, database, and object storage in one project. Reference variables connect the services without copying credentials, while the checked-in Infrastructure as Code file keeps build and runtime settings reproducible.

The project includes direct custom content paths, a safe MDX-style renderer, rich media embeds, scheduled publishing, recommendations, 24 themes, profile management, SEO metadata, feeds, and privacy-aware first-party analytics.

Common Use Cases

A personal research and paper archive
An independent publication or technical blog
A public lab notebook with rich media
A single-author knowledge base
A portfolio for talks, essays, notes, and long-form projects

Dependencies for Ren Publications Hosting

The template includes the runtime services needed by the application. A custom domain is optional and can be added after the generated Railway domain is healthy.

Deployment Dependencies

One Railway application service built from shirasakaren/publications
One Railway PostgreSQL service exposed through DATABASE_URL
One Railway Bucket exposed through S3-compatible AWS_* variables
A random SESSION_SECRET containing at least 32 characters
An optional canonical SITE_URL, such as the final custom-domain origin

After Deployment

Visit /onboarding before sharing the site publicly, choose a strong passphrase, and finish the author and site setup. Then open /admin to create content, choose featured work, upload media, configure navigation and themes, and review analytics.

If you add a custom domain, set SITE_URL to its complete HTTPS origin and redeploy. Keep database and bucket credentials as Railway reference variables.