Setup Database with Railway CLI

This tutorial will demonstrate a quick and simple way to get a production PostgreSQL database provisioned and connected to a RedwoodJS application. We will:

  1. Create a RedwoodJS project
  2. Provision a PostgreSQL database with Railway
  3. Setup the database with Prisma Migrate

1. Create a RedwoodJS project

yarn create redwood-app redwood-railway
cd redwood-railway
yarn rw dev

Open localhost:8910

Add Post model and set provider to postgresql in schema.prisma

// api/db/schema.prisma

datasource DS {
  provider = "postgresql"
  url      = env("DATABASE_URL")
}

generator client {
  provider      = "prisma-client-js"
  binaryTargets = "native"
}

model Post {
  id        Int      @id @default(autoincrement())
  title     String
  body      String
  createdAt DateTime @default(now())
}

2. Provision a PostgreSQL database with Railway

First you need to create a Railway account.

Install the Railway CLI

railway login
🚝 Logging in... No dice? Try railway login --browserless
πŸš„ Logging in... 
πŸŽ‰ Logged in as Anthony Campolo (anthony@email.com)

Initialize project

Run the following command and select β€œCreate new Project.”

railway init

Give your project a name

βœ” Create new Project
βœ” Enter project name: redwood-railway
βœ” Environment: production
πŸŽ‰ Created project redwood-railway

Provision PostgreSQL

Add a plugin to your Railway project.

railway add

Select PostgreSQL.

βœ” Plugin: postgresql 
πŸŽ‰ Created plugin postgresql

Set environment variable

Create a .env file with your DATABASE_URL.

echo DATABASE_URL=`railway variables get DATABASE_URL` > .env

3. Setup database with Prisma Migrate

Running yarn rw prisma migrate dev generates the folders and files necessary to create a new migration. We will name our migration nailed-it.

yarn rw prisma migrate dev --name nailed-it

Generate scaffold

A scaffold quickly creates a CRUD interface for a model by generating all the necessary files and corresponding routes.

yarn rw g scaffold post

You likely need to restart your development server for the environment variables to take effect.

yarn rw dev

Open localhost:8910/posts

Create a post.

Click Save.

3 Likes

The railway website lets you create a db without logging in. Can you do that with the cli as well?

1 Like