Railway•4mo ago

Running a Bun + pnpm Application on Railway

Hi! I have a monorepo where I use pnpm + turborepo for repo & package managment. One of the apps in the repository, a discord bot, uses bun as its runtime, but still uses pnpm for the actual package installation. Any idea how I can go about getting this working w/ nixpacks / railway? Thanks!

Solution:

or just use 1.0.23 on railway, add nixpkgsArchive = 'e99651a836b162b48fbf4195e0c8d3028b6b32a8' below your [phases.setup]

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54 Replies

Percy•4mo ago

Project ID: bc172a5f-caaa-4872-a59d-62201654b4f6

Liam•4mo ago

bc172a5f-caaa-4872-a59d-62201654b4f6

Brody•4mo ago

I'd probably go about writing a custom nixpacks plan for that specific app where I would have a file like bot.nixpacks.toml with all the applicable configurations https://nixpacks.com/docs/configuration/file and then the NIXPACKS_CONFIG_FILE service variable set to name of my nixpacks file so that the custom build plan is only used for the bot services

Liam•4mo ago

Got it, so would I want the nixpacks file to be at the root of the repo?

Brody•4mo ago

correct

Liam•4mo ago

Also, I am new to nixpacks config stuff. Does this seem like a good starting point?

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start'

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start'

Not really sure how my custom root for the service comes into play here

Liam•4mo ago

Brody•4mo ago

does any of the code in that folder access code outside of that folder? aka a shared monorepo

Liam•4mo ago

Yes, it accesses some shared packages in the /packages/ directory

Brody•4mo ago

yeah looks decent, replace with the applicable bun build and start commands, also add an install phase with the applicable bun command then setting the root directory to what you have would only copy in what's in that set directory meaning your bot code can't import something from directories elsewhere, it would need to be set to the root directory and that's where your custom bot.nixpacks.toml would live

Liam•4mo ago

Got it got it, have went ahead and done that, running into the following error during build:

Brody•4mo ago

I thought you wanted to use bun for the install, build, and start commands, looks like you're still using pnpm there. for your install, build, and start commands in the custom build plan you would need to use commands that run in a set directory, so that for example your install command only installs the packages that the bot app requires

Liam•4mo ago

Yep, sorry for the miscommunication! I am only using bun for a runtime. Currently I now have the service root set as just the root of the monorepo. Are you saying that pnpm install in the root would not work? On my local machine, pnpm handles monorepo stuffs so running pnpm install at root installs for all packages & apps.

Brody•4mo ago

okay only bun for runtime but pnpm for package management, got it! yes pnpm install ran in the root will install all packages for all apps, but we only want to install the packages the bot needs, pnpm provides an applicable flag or argument of some sort to do such a thing but I don't know it off the top of my head

Liam•4mo ago

I can't find the command for chaining multiple packages / apps together in one command, but giving this a shot

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start --filter bot'

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start --filter bot'

Brody•4mo ago

why are you trying to run multiple installs, this is only the bot service unless those are needed by the bot service?

Liam•4mo ago

The others are for dependent local packages in the monorepo, bot depends on config and db and I don't belive it cascades the install.

Brody•4mo ago

noted

Liam•4mo ago

Yep 👍

Brody•4mo ago

then that looks like it would do the trick, sorry I'm having to do a lot of guess work here since I don't have much knowledge of shared monorepos and pnpm

Liam•4mo ago

Its all good! Very much apreciate the help :)

Liam•4mo ago

Still seems to be having trouble installing pnpm v 8.3.1? I found this thread and have updated my package.json to include the pnpm version but I think the issue is that npm 404s when trying to install it. https://www.answeroverflow.com/m/1131260702330462219

build fails with "ERR_PNPM_LOCKFILE_CONFIG_MISMATCH" - Railway

Pretty much what the title says. Following the Nixpacks command order works both on my computer and a friend's (pnpm i --frozen-lockfile -> pnpm build -> pnpm start) Full error: ``` #10 [stage-0 6/10] RUN --mount=type=cache,id=s/e15ed82c-c15e-4b05-b9dc-06a185373d18-/root/local/share/pnpm/store/v3,target=/root/.local/share/pnpm/store/v3 pnpm i ...

Brody•4mo ago

is npm having issues right now or something?

Liam•4mo ago

Dosen't look like it :/ https://status.npmjs.org/ Super odd issue, cause my understanding is that once a package is depended on you can't remove it right? So no real reason it should 404...

npm Status

Welcome to npm's home for real-time and historical data on system performance.

Brody•4mo ago

wait, that log screenshot says pnpm 8.31.1 but the latest version is 8.15.2?? https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/releases unless im missing something here?

Liam•4mo ago

no yeah that is really bizzare

Brody•4mo ago

do you have 8.31.1 set somewhere? and what is your local pnpm version?

Liam•4mo ago

I have it set as 8.3.1 in the app, but that at the root. Let me fix that and see if it works.

Liam•4mo ago

Looking good 👀

Brody•4mo ago

oh thats much progress!

Liam•4mo ago

Builds now working! Odd issue though where it just lists the scripts in the package.json instead of running the actual bot though...

Brody•4mo ago

what's with the mention of .env files?

Liam•4mo ago

Sort of a bun replacement for libraries like dotenv. That part is only used in dev, and it does not lead to any errors if the file does not exist and does not overwrite existing enviroment variables.

Brody•4mo ago

okay cool, then that's very odd for sure hey where you able to get the last leg of this issue sorted out?

Liam•4mo ago

Sadly I still haven't, have tried a few things but to no avail :/

Brody•4mo ago

it's always just printing out the available scripts?

Liam•4mo ago

Yep, only difference between my local environment and the railway one as far as I can tell is the version of bun (1.0.11 on railway vs 1.0.23 on local)

Brody•4mo ago

does bun even have an actual command to print available scripts?

Liam•4mo ago

Only think I have found is this which seems like the behaviour changed at some point https://github.com/oven-sh/bun/discussions/7585

GitHub

Script to output available scripts like npm run · oven-sh bun · D...

I frequently used the old behavior of bun run with no arguments to see the available scripts in a project. Now that it includes the full help and examples every time it's not so useful. Here is...

Liam•4mo ago

Almost seems like bun run is not getting any arguments? That's really odd though as it definently is getting some.

Brody•4mo ago

show me again where and how you set your start command?

Liam•4mo ago

I do it via this nixpacks toml:

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start --filter bot'

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'pnpm run start --filter bot'

with the bot app package.json having the following scripts:

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --hot bot.ts",
    "start": "bun run --env-file=../../.env ./bot.ts",
    "deploy:dev": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --dev deploy-commands.ts",
    "deploy:prod": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --prod deploy-commands.ts"
  }

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --hot bot.ts",
    "start": "bun run --env-file=../../.env ./bot.ts",
    "deploy:dev": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --dev deploy-commands.ts",
    "deploy:prod": "bun run --env-file=../../.env --prod deploy-commands.ts"
  }

running pnpm run start --filter bot from the root of the monorepo on my local machine leads to the bot starting correctly

Brody•4mo ago

what does the build table say the start command is?

Liam•4mo ago

Where would the build table be at? This is what shows in settings for the service.

Brody•4mo ago

in the build logs

Liam•4mo ago

ah got it thx

Brody•4mo ago

thats not quite the command you showed me above?

Liam•4mo ago

sorry my bad had not copied the most recent version of the nixpacks toml

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'bun -v && pwd && pnpm --filter=bot run start'

[phases.setup]
nixPkgs = ['...', 'bun']

[phases.build]
cmds = ['pnpm install --filter db', 'pnpm install --filter config', 'pnpm install --filter bot']

[start]
cmd = 'bun -v && pwd && pnpm --filter=bot run start'

Liam•4mo ago

this is the deploy output

Brody•4mo ago

can you reproduce this behavior locally if you use bun 1.0.11?

Solution

Brody•4mo ago

or just use 1.0.23 on railway, add nixpkgsArchive = 'e99651a836b162b48fbf4195e0c8d3028b6b32a8' below your [phases.setup]

Liam•4mo ago

Setting the bun version worked! Thank you!

Brody•4mo ago

Awesome, through I'm still curious, can you reproduce that behaviour with bun 1.0.11 locally?

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Running a Bun + pnpm Application on Railway