Deploy and Host Shelf

Shelf is a self-hosted saved-link manager with email/password session auth, nested folders, tags, full-text search, favicon storage, and a browser-extension-friendly API.

About Hosting Shelf

This template deploys Shelf as a single public web/API service backed by Postgres, Redis, and Meilisearch. The app service serves the React frontend and API from the same origin, runs Drizzle migrations before startup, and exposes /health for Railway health checks.

After deployment, open the Shelf service URL and create the first account. Registration defaults to first-user-only, so signup closes automatically after the first user exists.

Why Deploy Shelf

Shelf is designed for users who want a self-hosted place to save, organize, and search links without relying on a proprietary bookmark service.

Common Use Cases

• Save links into folders and tags.
• Search saved links through Meilisearch.
• Use a private self-hosted bookmark manager for personal workflows.
• Connect browser-extension clients to the same API.

Dependencies for Shelf

Shelf needs a relational database, a Redis-compatible queue backend, and a search index.

Deployment Dependencies

• Postgres for app data and sessions.
• Redis for background enrichment jobs.
• Meilisearch for saved-link search.