deploy guide

Deploy to Railway

Railway is the friendliest option for non-technical creators — closest thing to a one-click deploy we trust. Free tier comfortably handles a small bot. total time: about 10 minutes.

Before you start, you'll need:
1

Get the Railway CLI

Railway wants code either from a Git repo or from their CLI. We're using the CLI, since we built this whole thing without git on purpose.

In a terminal:

npm install -g @railway/cli
railway login

Your browser opens — sign in. Come back to the terminal when it says you're logged in.

2

Unzip your bundle

Unzip justthetips-bot.zip (from the configurator) somewhere on your laptop. Inside you'll see:

justthetips/
├── config.env          ← your addresses and tokens
├── thankyous.json      ← your thank-you messages
├── src/                ← the bot itself
├── package.json
├── ...etc

Everything the bot needs is already there. You do not need to download anything else.

3

Create the Railway project

Inside the bot folder:

railway init

When prompted, give it a name like justthetips.

Then upload your code:

railway up

Railway installs your dependencies and starts your bot. First run takes 1-2 minutes.

4

Set your environment variables

Railway needs to know your config — but because we never commit config.env, Railway can't see it. Copy each line from config.env into Railway's variables panel.

From your Railway dashboard → your service → Variables tab → Raw Editor. Paste the entire contents of config.env. Click Save.

tip The Raw Editor accepts the whole file at once — you don't have to add variables one at a time.
5

Generate a public URL

In your service's Settings tab → Networking section → Generate Domain. Railway gives you something like https://justthetips-production.up.railway.app.

Copy that URL.

6

Tell the bot its public URL

Back in the Variables tab, find API_PUBLIC_URL (you set it earlier to whatever you typed in the configurator) and update it to the URL Railway gave you.

Railway redeploys automatically when you save. Another minute or two.

7

Check it works

Open https://<your-railway-url>/check in a browser.

You should see a page titled your bot — status check. Every enabled chain and chat platform should have a green ✓ badge.

If something's red, the text tells you exactly what to fix. Most often it's a typo in a token or address.

🎉 all green? your bot is live. go mention it in your chat and try a test tip.

Keeping it running

Railway's free tier gives you 500 hours of runtime per month — enough to keep a bot running 24/7 if you don't have many other things on Railway.

For a bot you want always-on with no surprise spindowns, consider their $5/mo Hobby plan. It's the same shape as the free tier, just without the hour cap.

Updates later

When a new version of justthetips comes out, you:

  1. Download the new bot tarball
  2. Drop your existing config.env and thankyous.json in
  3. railway up from the new folder

Your environment variables stay put. Only the code changes.