Row-Bot On Railway

Railway, a cloud platform, can run your own private Row-Bot in your own Railway account. You open Row-Bot from any browser, on a computer or a phone, and it keeps working while your devices are off, so schedules and channels keep running.

It's the same Row-Bot as the desktop app and as Row-Bot on PikaPods, and it's yours alone: one owner, signed in from as many devices as you like. You bring the model: a ChatGPT or Claude plan, a Grok sign-in, an API key, or your own model server.

Railway runs the server and bills you for what it uses. New versions install by themselves each night. You keep your own backups and, if you like, a spending limit. What Your Host Can See says plainly what Railway can reach.

There are two ways to start: Continue with Railway, which sets everything up and signs you in, or Railway's template, which you set up by hand.

Before You Start

• A Railway account. You can make one on the way, with GitHub, Google or an email address.
• Railway's Hobby plan is the one to use: $5 a month, with $5 of usage included, and it asks for a card. Railway may also ask to verify your account before Row-Bot can reach the internet.
• Railway's trial gives Row-Bot 1 GB: chats, memory and schedules work. Browser tasks and local speech-to-text need Railway's Hobby plan. Row-Bot says so on its first screen and in Settings › System, with Upgrade in Railway.

Continue With Railway

The quickest way: about 3 minutes, with no setup code to copy.

1. Open row-bot.ai/railway and choose Continue with Railway.
2. Sign in to Railway, or make an account, and choose Allow. That lets the page create Row-Bot in your workspace.
3. Pick the workspace and the region. The region is guessed from your time zone; change it if you like.
4. Choose Create my Row-Bot. Railway downloads and starts Row-Bot, which takes about 1½ minutes. Keep the page open.
5. Your Row-Bot opens, already signed in: "This browser is signed in." Row-Bot then asks how it should think (First Run).

The page makes one project, Row-Bot, with one service, row-bot:

• a volume at /data for your data, and its own address ending in up.railway.app;
• memory and CPU limits of 8 GB and 8 vCPU, the Hobby plan's ceiling. Railway bills only what Row-Bot uses;
• nightly automatic updates (Updates);
• a setup code, made in your browser, which the page uses once to sign you in.

What the page sees. It talks only to Railway. Railway's API doesn't accept calls from web pages, so they pass through a small relay Row-Bot runs on Cloudflare, which keeps and logs nothing. Row-Bot never stores your Railway sign-in; the page forgets it once your Row-Bot opens.

If something stops it, the page says what to do:

• Verify your account: Verify at Railway, then come back. The page checks again by itself.
• You can't create projects in this workspace: pick another workspace.
• You already have a Row-Bot in this workspace: Open it, or Create another.
• Still starting after a few minutes: Railway is still downloading Row-Bot. You can leave the page; your Row-Bot's address and its setup code (in Railway's Variables) are on the page.
• Railway couldn't start Row-Bot: See Railway's log, or Try again, which carries on where it stopped.

Or Deploy The Template

The same Row-Bot, set up in Railway's own pages.

1. Open Row-Bot's template in Railway's template marketplace (search for Row-Bot) and choose Deploy Now. Sign in to Railway, or create an account.
2. Deploy. Railway creates a project with one service, row-bot, its volume for your data, and its own address ending in up.railway.app. Leave the variables as they are: the template fills them in, your setup code included.
3. In the service's Settings › Deploy, check the replica limits: 8 GB of memory and 8 vCPU. If they're empty, set them. Railway bills only what Row-Bot uses, and Row-Bot reads the memory limit to warn you before it runs short.
4. In the service's Settings › Source, choose Configure auto updates, then Update to the latest tag and Overnight (Updates).

The deploy log ends with Row-Bot is running at. If it shows Row-Bot didn't start: instead, the rest of that line says why.

Sign In

The setup code makes your browser the owner, so nobody else can use your Row-Bot. Either:

• Click the sign-in link in the service's deploy log: the line Open this link to sign in: https://…/setup#code=…. Your Row-Bot opens and signs this browser in. Or:
• Enter the code. Open your Row-Bot at its address (the link on the service, or Settings › Networking); it says Welcome to your Row-Bot. Under Where's my code?, choose Open your Variables in Railway and copy the value of ROW_BOT_SETUP_CODE. Paste it into Setup code and choose Continue. Dashes, spaces and capitals don't matter.

Row-Bot says "This browser is signed in." The code works once: from then on, anyone else who opens your address sees This Row-Bot already has an owner, and you add your other devices from Row-Bot itself (Add Your Phone). The sign-in link is printed only while nobody owns your Row-Bot.

Lost Access?

Set a new ROW_BOT_SETUP_CODE of at least 12 letters or digits in the service's Variables and deploy the change. Then open your Row-Bot, choose Lost access? and enter the new code. It works once, and signs out every other browser. Lost The Setup Code has more.

First Run

Row-Bot asks How should Row-Bot think?, exactly as on any hosted Row-Bot: Sign in with ChatGPT, Use my Claude plan, and Other ways for an API key, your own model server or Sign in with Grok. Choose A Model explains each one.

After you sign in, Row-Bot checks that the model answers and opens a chat with one suggestion to tap.

Your Subscriptions And Accounts

Everything you sign in to on Railway works as in the desktop app, through your browser:

• ChatGPT: Row-Bot copies a code and opens OpenAI's page; paste the code there and approve. If ChatGPT won't take the code, enable device code login in your ChatGPT security settings (OpenAI's steps), then try again.

• Your Claude plan: Row-Bot installs Claude Code, Anthropic's program, on your server, then opens Claude's own sign-in; paste the code Claude gives you. Row-Bot never sees, stores or relays your Claude sign-in.

• Grok: xAI's sign-in ends on a page that doesn't load; paste that page's address back into Row-Bot (A Sign-In That Won't Finish).

• Outlook: Microsoft signs you in with a code you enter at Microsoft's own page; nothing to set up.

• X and Google use an app or client of your own, which sends you back to your Row-Bot's own address, so it must list it:

  • X: https://<your address>/api/v1/accounts/x/auth/callback
  • Google, in a Web application client: https://<your address>/api/v1/accounts/google/auth/callback

  where <your address> is the service's address, such as row-bot-production-1a2b.up.railway.app. Each account's setup guide, in Settings › Apps, shows the exact address to copy. Accounts And Authorisation explains the rest.

If you give the service a domain of your own, set ROW_BOT_PUBLIC_URL to it (https:// and the domain, nothing else), deploy the change, and list the new callback addresses too.

Updates

New versions install by themselves each night when automatic updates are on in Railway. Continue with Railway turns them on; with the template, turn them on yourself (step 4 above). Railway then installs each new stable version of Row-Bot between 02:00 and 06:00 UTC, with your data and sign-ins kept.

Settings › Updates says Updates come from Railway, with your version, Check in Railway (your service's settings, where automatic updates are) and What's new. Row-Bot can't see Railway's settings, so if you turn automatic updates off, update from the service's settings yourself.

Each version's notes in GitHub Releases end with a For Hosts section: on Railway you're the host, so it's for you.

Costs

Railway bills by what your service uses, at the prices it publishes (Railway's pricing):

What	Price
Hobby plan	$5 a month, which includes $5 of usage
Memory	$10 per GB a month
CPU	$20 per vCPU a month
Volume	$0.15 per GB a month
Data out	$0.05 per GB

Row-Bot uses about 0.4 GB of memory just started, more while it works, and very little CPU when idle. The 8 GB and 8 vCPU limits are a ceiling, not a charge. For light use, expect the $5 minimum to about $10 a month; heavy use, such as local speech-to-text or long browser sessions, costs more.

Set a spending limit. In Railway, open your workspace's Usage page and set a hard limit under Usage Limits; $10 or more leaves room for a busy month. After your first answer, Settings › System suggests it too: Set a spending limit in Railway, with a ✓ to hide the line once it's done (Row-Bot can't see Railway's billing).

The model is billed by whoever provides it: a ChatGPT or Claude plan is the subscription you already pay for, and an API key is billed by its provider. Row-Bot itself is free and open source.

Memory And Space

• Memory: with an 8 GB limit, everything fits, local speech-to-text included. Settings › System shows Memory … of 8 GB. If Row-Bot ever restarts for lack of memory, Home and Monitor say so, with Raise the memory limit. Row-Bot Restarted: Out Of Memory explains.
• On Railway's trial (1 GB): chats, memory and schedules work; browser tasks and local speech-to-text need the Hobby plan. Row-Bot says so, with Upgrade in Railway.
• Space: a Hobby volume holds up to 5 GB. Row-Bot's search model (641 MB) and local speech-to-text (464 MB) come to about 1.7 GB in the first hour with the rest of Row-Bot's data, which leaves about 3 GB for your conversations, documents and workspaces. Railway's volume view shows how full it is.

Backups And Moving

Railway backs up your server only on its Pro plan. So download a backup from time to time: in Settings › Data, choose Download backup. It saves a copy on your device. Back up now only keeps a copy on your Row-Bot server, on the same volume. A backup holds your conversations, memories, workflows, designs and settings, without passwords or sign-ins.

The same backup moves your Row-Bot to the desktop app, to PikaPods, or to a new Railway service, and back: see Moving To Your Computer And Back. To restore on Railway, choose Restore from backup… in Settings › Data, choose Restore on restart, then redeploy the service from its Deployments tab. Once everything has arrived, you can delete the old service.

Railway's October Incident

On 21 October 2026 Railway disclosed that an attacker may have reached the systems that keep customers' environment variables, and decrypted some of them. Its preliminary report covers what happened and asks customers who signed up before 21 October to replace keys kept in Railway.

What Row-Bot does about it:

• No key in Railway's variables. The key that encrypts your saved sign-ins isn't one of the service's variables. Row-Bot makes it on your volume at its first start, readable only by Row-Bot, and its backups leave it out.
• A setup code that works once. The code in your variables is useless once you've signed in. A new code you set to get back in works once too, so use it soon after setting it.
• Your sign-ins stay on the volume, encrypted, never in Railway's variables.

What it doesn't change: like any host, Railway runs the computer and can reach your volume, the key on it included. What Your Host Can See says what that means and how to protect yourself, such as spending limits on API keys.

Getting Help

• Railway helps with your account, billing, the service and whether it's up. In Row-Bot, Settings › System shows Hosted by Railway with links to your service, your workspace's usage, Railway's support (Central Station) and its status page.
• Row-Bot helps with everything inside Row-Bot. Start with Fix A Hosted Row-Bot, ask in Discussions, or report a bug: under "Where does Row-Bot run?" choose a hosting service, and name Railway and your memory limit.

Hosting Row-Bot has the technical details of how the template runs the image.