Railway MCP Server

About

Railway's official MCP server puts your Railway projects — services, databases, environment variables, deployments, networking, volumes, and templates — inside natural-language reach of Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI Codex, Factory Droid, and OpenCode. As of the current release, the standalone `@railway/mcp-server` npm package is deprecated in favor of shipping MCP support directly inside the Railway CLI: running `railway mcp` starts a local stdio server, while `railway mcp install` auto-detects installed AI tools and writes the correct client config for you (add `--agent <tool>` to target one of claude-code, cursor, factory-droid, copilot, codex or opencode; add `--remote` to route through `railway mcp proxy` to Railway's hosted server at mcp.railway.com using your CLI login, or `--remote --oauth` to write the HTTPS endpoint directly and let the client run OAuth). `railway setup agent` does the same thing and also installs Railway's `use-railway` agent skill. The installer merges Railway's entry into existing MCP configs without clobbering other servers you've already set up. Local and Remote are not the same tool set: Local exposes roughly fifty tools including domains, volumes, TCP proxies, buckets, logs and metrics, while Remote exposes eleven — and only Remote has `railway-agent`, which hands multi-step debugging to Railway's own agent. Remote also refuses project tokens; it requires a user identity for billing and audit. Once connected, you can ask your AI agent to spin up a new environment from a GitHub repo, roll environment variables across services, inspect deploy logs when a build fails, provision a Postgres or Redis instance, or manage networking and volume mounts — all without leaving your editor or touching the Railway dashboard. Because the CLI is the source of truth, keeping `railway` up to date is enough to pick up new MCP tools; there's no separate npm package to track anymore. The legacy `@railway/mcp-server` package is a deprecated compatibility shim, last published as 0.1.12 on 2026-05-23, and the repository it came from (railwayapp/railway-mcp-server, 192★) was archived the same day — both still install cleanly, which is why people are still running the old path.

Installation

curl -fsSL agents.railway.com | sh

Installing Railway MCP

1. 1.Install the CLI and configure agents in one step

   The bootstrap installs the CLI to `~/.railway/bin` and then runs `railway setup agent`, which writes MCP config for every AI coding tool it detects and installs Railway's `use-railway` agent skill. macOS and Linux natively; Windows through WSL with a Bash shell. If you would rather install the CLI without touching any editor config, drop the agent flag.

   shell

   curl -fsSL agents.railway.com | sh
   
   # CLI only, no agent/MCP configuration:
   bash <(curl -fsSL railway.com/install.sh) -y

2. 2.Or install the CLI the way you install everything else

   Homebrew, npm and Scoop all work, as do the pre-built binaries on the releases page. The npm route needs Node 16 or later. Note which npm package you want: `@railway/cli` is the CLI and is the right one — `@railway/mcp-server` is the deprecated shim and installing it is the most common way people end up on the old path.

   shell

   brew install railway          # macOS
   npm i -g @railway/cli         # needs Node >= 16
   scoop install railway         # Windows

3. 3.Authenticate before you configure anything

   Local MCP has no credentials of its own — it uses whatever the CLI is logged in as. On a box without a browser, `--browserless` prints a code to paste. For CI, set a token instead of logging in: `RAILWAY_TOKEN` is project-scoped, `RAILWAY_API_TOKEN` is account or workspace scoped. Neither works for Remote MCP; see the gotcha below.

   shell

   railway login
   railway login --browserless   # SSH sessions
   railway whoami

4. 4.Pick a server, then install it

   Three install shapes, and the flags are the whole choice. Bare `install` writes Local MCP (the CLI runs the server on your machine). `--remote` writes `railway mcp proxy`, which speaks stdio to the editor and forwards to `mcp.railway.com` over HTTPS using your `railway login` session — so no long-lived credential ever lands in an editor config file. `--remote --oauth` writes the HTTPS URL directly and lets the client run OAuth itself. Add `--agent` once per tool to skip detection.

   shell

   railway mcp install                       # Local MCP, all detected tools
   railway mcp install --remote              # Remote MCP via the CLI proxy
   railway mcp install --remote --oauth      # Remote MCP, client handles OAuth
   railway mcp install --agent claude-code --agent copilot

5. 5.Know the six agent values

   `--agent` accepts `claude-code`, `cursor`, `factory-droid`, `copilot`, `codex` and `opencode`. Anything else is not a supported target — including VS Code, which you configure by hand. `railway skills` installs into a universal `.agents` directory as well, but that directory has no MCP configuration convention, so skills land there and MCP config does not.

   shell

   railway mcp install --agent cursor
   railway skills --agent claude-code

6. 6.Configure it by hand instead

   The installer only merges — it never removes MCP servers you already had — but if you want to see exactly what it writes, this is it. Claude Code and Codex have one-liners of their own. VS Code is not a supported `--agent` target and has to be written manually.

   json

   // .cursor/mcp.json
   { "mcpServers": { "railway": { "command": "railway", "args": ["mcp"] } } }
   
   // .vscode/mcp.json — manual only
   { "servers": { "railway": { "type": "stdio", "command": "railway", "args": ["mcp"] } } }
   
   // Claude Code:  claude mcp add railway railway mcp
   // Codex:        codex mcp add railway -- railway mcp
   // Factory:      droid mcp add railway "railway mcp"

7. 7.If your editor is Windsurf, Cline or Devin

   Those three only support Remote MCP with OAuth — there is no local stdio path for them in Railway's own per-editor matrix. Point them at the HTTPS endpoint and let the client do the OAuth dance. That also means those editors get the remote tool set, which is the smaller one.

   shell

   railway mcp install --remote --oauth
   # writes: { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.railway.com" }

What it can do — and why Local and Remote are not the same server

Local MCP exposes roughly fifty tools across ten families, because it drives the CLI. Remote MCP exposes eleven, plus one that Local does not have: `railway-agent`, which hands a natural-language request to Railway's own agent for multi-step work. So Remote is not "Local over HTTPS" — choose Remote and you lose domains, volumes, TCP proxies, logs and metrics as tools; choose Local and you lose the agent handoff.

What people use it for

Which one should you use?

Four things answer to this name. Only one is maintained.

Categories

Works With

Frequently Asked Questions