Pro Templates

A Railway skill for discovering and deploying services from Railway's template marketplace. Pro Templates helps you quickly provision pre-configured services — from databases and CMS platforms to full-stack starter kits — without manual setup.

When to Use This Skill

Choose Pro Templates when:

• Adding a pre-configured service (PostgreSQL, Redis, Ghost, Strapi)
• Deploying a starter template for a new framework or stack
• Finding Railway templates for specific use cases
• Setting up infrastructure components without custom configuration

Consider alternatives when:

• You're deploying your own custom application code (use standard deployment)
• You need to modify a template significantly before deploying (clone the template repo)
• You want to create your own template for the marketplace

Quick Start

Copy
claude "Add a PostgreSQL database and Redis cache to my Railway project"

Copy
# Add database plugins (built-in templates)
railway add --plugin postgresql
railway add --plugin redis
railway add --plugin mysql
railway add --plugin mongodb

# Deploy a community template
# Browse templates at railway.app/templates
# Deploy directly from the dashboard or via CLI with template URL

Core Concepts

Built-in Database Plugins

Plugin	Command	Auto-Variables
PostgreSQL	railway add --plugin postgresql	DATABASE_URL, PGHOST, PGPORT
Redis	railway add --plugin redis	REDIS_URL, REDISHOST, REDISPORT
MySQL	railway add --plugin mysql	MYSQL_URL, MYSQLHOST
MongoDB	railway add --plugin mongodb	MONGO_URL, MONGOHOST

Popular Community Templates

Copy
## CMS & Content
- Ghost — Headless CMS for publishing
- Strapi — Open-source headless CMS
- WordPress — Classic CMS with MySQL

## Development Tools
- Hasura — Instant GraphQL API on PostgreSQL
- MinIO — S3-compatible object storage
- Metabase — Business intelligence and analytics

## Full-Stack Starters
- Next.js + PostgreSQL
- Express + MongoDB
- Django + PostgreSQL
- Rails + PostgreSQL

Template Deployment Flow

Copy
1. Browse templates → railway.app/templates
2. Click "Deploy" on chosen template
3. Railway creates project with pre-configured services
4. Environment variables auto-wired between services
5. Domain auto-generated for web-facing services
6. Customize variables/settings as needed

Configuration

Parameter	Description	Default
plugin_type	Database type to provision	Required
template_source	URL or marketplace ID	Dashboard
auto_domain	Generate domain for web services	true
auto_variables	Wire variables between services	true
persistent_volume	Attach volume for data persistence	Varies by template

Best Practices

1. Use built-in plugins for databases. Railway's managed database plugins handle provisioning, environment variable injection, and networking automatically. Custom database containers require manual setup and won't benefit from Railway's plugin features.

2. Review template source code before deploying. Community templates may include configurations or dependencies you don't need. Check the GitHub repository linked from the template page to understand what you're deploying.

3. Customize variables after deployment. Templates come with sensible defaults, but review and update credentials, API keys, and configuration values for your specific use case. Default passwords should be changed immediately.

4. Attach persistent volumes to stateful templates. Templates for databases, CMS platforms, and file storage need persistent volumes. Check whether the template auto-creates a volume — if not, add one manually to prevent data loss on redeploy.

5. Keep template forks updated. If you forked a template repository to customize it, periodically pull upstream changes for security patches and feature updates. Set a reminder to check for updates monthly.

Common Issues

Template deploys but service keeps crashing. Check railway logs for the specific error. Common causes: the template requires environment variables that weren't set, the build command differs from your local setup, or the template expects a different runtime version than what Nixpacks provides.

Database plugin not visible to application service. Variables injected by plugins are scoped to the environment. Ensure your application service is in the same environment as the database plugin. Use reference variables (${{Postgres.DATABASE_URL}}) to link them, then redeploy the application service.

Template is outdated or unmaintained. Check the template's GitHub repository for recent commits. If the last update was over a year ago, consider using a more actively maintained alternative or deploying the upstream project directly with your own railway.json configuration.