Deploy and Host Temporal 1.32 on Railway

Temporal is an open-source durable execution platform. You write workflows as ordinary code in Go, Java, TypeScript, Python, .NET, PHP or Ruby, and Temporal keeps their state, retries failed steps and resumes after crashes or deploys. Use it for background jobs, long-running processes, sagas, AI agents and scheduled tasks.

About Hosting Temporal

A self-hosted Temporal cluster needs a database with two schemas (history and visibility), the schema created and upgraded with Temporal's own tool before the server starts, a default namespace, the server itself, and the Web UI. The official all-in-one auto-setup image stopped at Temporal 1.29, so newer versions need the schema step done separately. The Temporal UI has no login of its own except OIDC, so a public UI without a gateway lets anyone see and terminate your workflows.

This template runs Temporal 1.32 from official images on PostgreSQL, with no Elasticsearch. An Admin Tools service creates and upgrades the schema on every deploy and creates the default namespace. The server waits for it, then starts. The Temporal UI sits behind a login, and the server and database are private.

Common Use Cases

Durable background jobs and task queues that survive restarts and deploys
Long-running business processes: orders, payments, onboarding, approvals
AI agent and LLM pipelines with retries, timeouts and human-in-the-loop steps
Cron-style schedules with history, pause and backfill
Sagas and multi-service transactions with compensation steps
A Temporal backend for apps that need one, such as Postiz or PostHog

Dependencies for Temporal Hosting

PostgreSQL 17 (history and visibility)
Temporal Admin Tools 1.32 (schema setup, temporal CLI)
Temporal UI 2.58
Caddy 2.11 (login gateway)

Deployment Dependencies

Temporal server: https://github.com/temporalio/temporal
Temporal UI: https://github.com/temporalio/ui
Docs for self-hosted Temporal: https://docs.temporal.io/self-hosted-guide
SDKs: https://docs.temporal.io/develop

Implementation Details

What you set: nothing. Optionally AUTH_USERNAME (default admin) on the Gateway service.

After deploy:

Open the Gateway service's URL and log in with AUTH_USERNAME and the generated AUTH_PASSWORD (Gateway → Variables). The UI opens the default namespace.
Connect your workers and clients from services in the same Railway project to the frontend over the private network:

TEMPORAL_ADDRESS=${{Temporal.RAILWAY_PRIVATE_DOMAIN}}:7233
TEMPORAL_NAMESPACE=default

For the temporal CLI, open a shell on the Admin Tools service (railway ssh); TEMPORAL_ADDRESS is already set there:

temporal operator namespace list
temporal workflow list

This template:

Runs Temporal 1.32 on official temporalio/server and temporalio/admin-tools images, not a custom image
Creates and upgrades the history and visibility schemas automatically on every deploy, so a tag bump upgrades the database before the new server starts
Creates the default namespace (72h retention, configurable)
Uses PostgreSQL for visibility (workflow search), so no Elasticsearch is needed
Protects the Temporal UI with a login (HTTP basic auth); the UI service itself is private
Keeps the gRPC frontend and the database on the private network
Pins every image version

Notes: the frontend has no authentication (no mTLS or JWT in this template), so keep it private. Only add a TCP proxy to the Temporal service on port 7233 if you need workers outside Railway, and know that anyone with the address can then use the cluster. Admin Tools must stay deployed: the server waits for it on startup. NUM_HISTORY_SHARDS (4) is fixed when the cluster is first created.

Why Deploy Temporal 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 Temporal 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.