Secure your Railway deployments with these essential practices. From environment variables to database security.
Verify your app follows these best practices automatically.
Railway simplifies deployment, but application security remains your responsibility. Follow these practices to deploy securely on Railway.
Never commit secrets to your repository. Use Railway's environment variable management.
Add secrets in Railway Dashboard → Project → Variables
Connect to Railway databases via private networking, not public endpoints.
Use DATABASE_PRIVATE_URL instead of DATABASE_URL for internal connections
Require approvals for production deployments to prevent accidental or unauthorized changes.
Configure deploy protection in Project Settings
Validate authentication and authorization in every API endpoint.
Check auth tokens and user permissions at the start of each route
Use Railway environments to isolate production from staging and development.
Create separate environments with their own variables and databases
Set up health checks to ensure only healthy instances receive traffic.
Configure health check endpoint in Service Settings
Exposes database to internet, relying only on password
Use DATABASE_PRIVATE_URL for internal services
Production data accessible from development
Use separate environments with different credentials
Anyone with access can push to production
Enable deployment approval requirements
Following best practices is the first step. Verify your app is actually secure with a comprehensive security scan.
Scan Your App FreeYes, Railway encrypts environment variables. They're only exposed to your deployments and not visible in logs.
Railway's managed databases handle security configuration automatically (encryption, backups, private networking). They're often more secure than self-managed for small teams.
Use DATABASE_PRIVATE_URL for private networking between Railway services. This keeps database traffic off the public internet.
Last updated: January 2026