Deploy and Host Telegram Bot (Telegraf) on Railway

Node.js Telegraf starter that serves HTTPS webhooks on your Railway domain (not long polling), exposes GET /health, and stores sessions on Railway Redis. HTTP binds first, so a missing or dummy BOT_TOKEN still deploys healthy.

About Hosting Telegram Bot (Telegraf)

This template runs a digest-pinned Node 20 Alpine image with Telegraf 4.16.3. Railway assigns a public HTTPS domain; the bot registers https:///webhook with Telegram. Official Railway Redis is wired on the private network for sessions, with an in-memory fallback if Redis is down.

There is no web login. Create a bot with @BotFather, paste the token into BOT_TOKEN, deploy, then message /start in Telegram.

Common Use Cases

Production Telegram bots that should use webhooks, not long polling
Command starters (/start, /help, /ping, /status) you can extend in JavaScript
Session-backed bots (wizard flows, per-user state) on Railway Redis
Always-on webhook workers with a Railway healthcheck

Dependencies for Telegram Bot (Telegraf) Hosting

Node.js 20+ (digest-pinned node:20-alpine image)
Telegraf 4.16.3 with package-lock.json
Official Railway Redis (redis:8.2) on /data, private REDIS_URL
Public HTTPS domain (RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN) for Telegram webhooks
A BotFather token you provide (never generated)

Deployment Dependencies

Create a bot with @BotFather and copy the token (123456789:AA...).
Click Deploy on Railway and paste that token into BOT_TOKEN (required).
Deploy. Railway assigns a public HTTPS domain and generates WEBHOOK_SECRET.
Open https:///health — you should see {"ok":true,...}.
Message the bot /start, /help, /ping, or /status.

Why Deploy Telegram Bot (Telegraf) 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 Telegram Bot (Telegraf) 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.

Required vs generated variables

Variable	Service	Required	Source
`BOT_TOKEN`	bot	Yes (you provide)	@BotFather. Never generated. Dummy values still boot `/health`.
`WEBHOOK_SECRET`	bot	Generated	`${{secret()}}`. Sent to Telegram as `secret_token` and checked on `/webhook`.
`REDIS_URL`	bot	Wired	`${{Redis.REDIS_URL}}` — private network, not public TCP.
`PORT`	bot	Railway-provided	HTTP listen port.
`RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN`	bot	Railway-provided	Used as the webhook host.

Do not bake a real bot token into the template. If Redis is missing, the bot keeps in-memory sessions and stays healthy.

Services, volume, ports

bot — Node 20 Alpine image (digest-pinned), Telegraf 4.16.3, GET /health + POST /webhook. Public HTTP on port 3000 (Railway PORT).
Redis — official Railway Redis 8.2. Private URL only. Volume at /data. The bot itself does not mount a volume.
No SSH, no long polling, no public Redis.

How to log in / talk to the bot

There is no web login. After deploy:

Open Telegram and search for the bot you created with BotFather.
Send /start.
/status shows whether the webhook registered and whether sessions are redis or memory.

GET / on the public domain returns JSON status. GET /health is the Railway healthcheck (HTTP 200).

Why this is healthier than rotting marketplace clones

Pinned Node 20 image digest, pinned telegraf@4.16.3, lockfile (package-lock.json). Not :latest.
Webhooks via RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN, not long polling.
Required user BOT_TOKEN, not a generated dummy that makes Telegram 401 and tanks template health.
/health healthcheck with restartPolicyType = ON_FAILURE. The HTTP server binds before talking to Telegram, so a throwaway token still deploys SUCCESS.
Official Railway Redis over private REDIS_URL, with a hard timeout and in-memory fallback. Not unpinned Bitnami.
Webhook secret generated with ${{secret()}}.
App sleeping disabled so the webhook stays reachable.

Local run

cp .env.example .env   # set BOT_TOKEN
npm ci
npm start

Health: curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:3000/health

Source

GitHub: leoisadev1/railway-template-telegram-js-bot