Railway•5mo ago

Deploying with a GitHub Action

I'm looking for some pointers on how to deploy our app via GitHub actions. Specifically I am having trouble specifying the environment when I link the project. I have tried running

railway environment [env]

railway environment [env]

This works and links to that environment. However, when I follow it up with

railway link [project_id]

railway link [project_id]

it prompts me for the environment to deploy to. Is there a way to provide an environment flat to the link so that it knows which environment to deploy to with running

railway up

railway up

? Any help on this would be appreciated. What I am ultimately trying to do it deploy to a specific service, within a specifc environment from a Github action.

57 Replies

Percy•5mo ago

Project ID: d36cedc3-d1a4-453b-9e36-45d7299cabfd

drewbie•5mo ago

d36cedc3-d1a4-453b-9e36-45d7299cabfd

Brody•5mo ago

provide both the --environment and --service flags directly to railway up so you can skip railway link and railway environment

drewbie•5mo ago

Is the service arg the uuid of the service, or the name itself?

Brody•5mo ago

~>railway up --help
Upload and deploy project from the current directory

Usage: railway up [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Arguments:
  [PATH]

Options:
  -d, --detach                     Don't attach to the log stream
  -s, --service <SERVICE>          Service to deploy to (defaults to linked service)
  -e, --environment <ENVIRONMENT>  Environment to deploy to (defaults to linked environment)
      --json                       Output in JSON format
  -h, --help                       Print help
  -V, --version                    Print version

~>railway up --help
Upload and deploy project from the current directory

Usage: railway up [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Arguments:
  [PATH]

Options:
  -d, --detach                     Don't attach to the log stream
  -s, --service <SERVICE>          Service to deploy to (defaults to linked service)
  -e, --environment <ENVIRONMENT>  Environment to deploy to (defaults to linked environment)
      --json                       Output in JSON format
  -h, --help                       Print help
  -V, --version                    Print version

i think both work, but im not exactly sure on that

drewbie•5mo ago

Ok, going to give that a whirl! Do i need to adjust the custom build command or will it bypass it when up is used?

Brody•5mo ago

is this a build command you have set in the service settings?

drewbie•5mo ago

I had it set in the Railway dashboard from when I was using the github integration and hte build was happening on railway, now the build is happening in the github action and i just want to pass over the directory

Brody•5mo ago

build is still happening on railway, your just using the cli to ship your code to railway in a tarball instead of having railway pull your repo

drewbie•5mo ago

Ah ok - but the contents of the current directory that im in with calling railway up is what itll have access to when running its build?

Brody•5mo ago

that sounds correct, that what railway up would bundle up and sent to railway

drewbie•5mo ago

Ok I think Im set for now, appreciate the help!

Brody•5mo ago

no prob!

maddsua•5mo ago

speaking of that, maybe it would be a good idea to create a railway action?

Brody•5mo ago

go for it

maddsua•5mo ago

u serious? what I mean is I can totally do that but is it actually needed you know better than I do

Brody•5mo ago

if you need it and it's something you want, then build it

maddsua•5mo ago

I use gitlab 💀

Brody•5mo ago

well that's a whole other separate issue

drewbie•5mo ago

@Brody - - Does this in anyway look at the .gitignore when it runs the build command in Railway to decide whether to include certain files?
- ~~Is there a way to pry into the deployment to inspect the file contents?~~ -- Figured this out (just read the docs 😆 ) - and the file is in fact there, so not quite sure why its saying it cant find it. - The problem I am running into is that I am generating the types for the project in Github actions, and passing those types in the newly created files along with the railway up command. When the project is ran in Railway, its not finding those files. Those type files are included in the .gitignore if that makes a difference I just cache the CLI in Github, makes it speedy

Brody•5mo ago

railway up does indeed ignore patterns specified in the .gitignore

drewbie•5mo ago

The files are there when I jump into the box. They are fresh every build no?

Brody•5mo ago

jump into the box?

drewbie•5mo ago

open up a shell for the service

Brody•5mo ago

railway does not provide a shell or ssh for the container, if you are referring to railway shell that is a local shell, but with the linked service variables now available locally

drewbie•5mo ago

Ah I see - how can I tell what the directory looks like for the service?

Brody•5mo ago

it would look like your project minus files and folders that are in the .gitignore, but whats been uploaded gets placed in an /app directory at the root of the container if you have the types in your .gitignore file railway up wont upload them

drewbie•5mo ago

Hmm ok - gotta figure out a way around that for my usage then.

Brody•5mo ago

have railway's build generate the types?

drewbie•5mo ago

I think so..

Brody•5mo ago

why not? (genuine question)

drewbie•5mo ago

Right now just extra config to ensure the type generation scripts can all work within the railway ecosystem (env vars n such) - was aiming to have the dx be all of that was handled in github, and railway just hosted the service

Brody•5mo ago

i think you should let railway do that stuff too, work with railway

drewbie•5mo ago

and to be fair I already have to manage the env vars within railway for all of the thing swithin the code the references those values anyways, will just need to add whats needed to generate the types

Brody•5mo ago

question, are you building with a dockerfile?

drewbie•5mo ago

I am not Can I reference environment variables inline in the build commands? eg in Github ive got

run: yarn workspace backend supabase link --project-ref ${{ secrets.SUPABASE_PROJECT_REF }} -p ${{ secrets.DATABASE_PASSWORD }}

run: yarn workspace backend supabase link --project-ref ${{ secrets.SUPABASE_PROJECT_REF }} -p ${{ secrets.DATABASE_PASSWORD }}

Brody•5mo ago

that doesnt look like a build command, but you can add those env vars to the service and then referance them with the linux $ENV_VAR syntax in a custom phase inside your nixpacks.toml file, like so

[phases.link_supabase]
    dependsOn = ['setup']
    cmds = ['yarn workspace backend supabase link --project-ref $SUPABASE_PROJECT_REF -p $DATABASE_PASSWORD']

[phases.link_supabase]
    dependsOn = ['setup']
    cmds = ['yarn workspace backend supabase link --project-ref $SUPABASE_PROJECT_REF -p $DATABASE_PASSWORD']

drewbie•5mo ago

where would that phases command by referenced in the build config for the project?

Brody•5mo ago

what do you mean exactly by build config? nixpacks.toml is a build config

drewbie•5mo ago

I am setting the build command in the railway ui for example, are the things in the nixpacks.toml executed before that?

Brody•5mo ago

the command you provided really doesn’t look like a build command, so you ideally wouldn't be setting that kind of command as the build command. but the phases can run at any point during the build with that dependsOn keyword

drewbie•5mo ago

Its just one of the commands im running as part of the type generation

Brody•5mo ago

a build command would more so be something like yarn workspace backend build

drewbie•5mo ago

Hm, trying to run the command in the nixpacks.toml

Brody•5mo ago

full build logs please https://bookmarklets.up.railway.app/log-downloader/

Invalid access token format. Must be like `sbp_0102...1920`

Invalid access token format. Must be like `sbp_0102...1920`

drewbie•5mo ago

Am I able to see that error on my end? Its not the build logs?

Brody•5mo ago

yeah i copied it from the log you sent me

drewbie•5mo ago

Ah 🤦‍♂️ - I see it just not where I expected it

Brody•5mo ago

it never is

drewbie•5mo ago

We're in business, that approach is working!

Brody•5mo ago

awesome!

drewbie•5mo ago

Just wanted to add a note that it would be cool if there was a way (and if there is I couldnt find it), to create environments on the fly with the CLI. The github integration was neat as it synced the PR to its own environment. Was messing with trying to do that without the github integration and wasnt able to get anywhere.

Brody•5mo ago

that's actually asked quite frequently cc @Melissa

Melissa•5mo ago

literally just yesterday we were talking about adding the ability to create envs in the CLI. i'll create a ticket, i think Ray is going to start giving the CLI some attention soon

drewbie•5mo ago

Everytime I've come into this Discord for the past year or so you all are always helpful. Much appreciated! Is the github integration open source from you all that I can see what all it was doing?

Brody•5mo ago

it's not, that would all be internal to railway

birki•5mo ago

@drewbie I would highly suggest https://github.com/github/branch-deploy (full disclosure I am the creator) There are examples on how to use it with railway here: https://github.com/github/branch-deploy/blob/main/docs/examples.md#railway Also, here is an article I wrote about what the "branch deploy model" is and why you should use it -> https://blog.birki.io/posts/branch-deploy/

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