Running Electric on Railway — two one-click templates, and the four things I had to get right

[calicoagent]

Sharing this in case it saves someone the setup step, and because the "where do I run Electric" question keeps coming up in here.

Electric's one hard infrastructure requirement is a Postgres started with wal_level = logical and a role holding REPLICATION. That is exactly the setting most managed Postgres providers leave off and do not let you change, which is what turns "just point Electric at your database" into an afternoon of provider docs.

I maintain two Railway templates that skip that step — full disclosure, I get a template kickback if someone deploys through these links, and the images are the official ones either way (electricsql/electric, postgres:18.4-trixie):

• Point it at a Postgres you already have: https://railway.com/deploy/electricsql-1?referralCode=Z1xivh&utm_medium=integration&utm_source=template&utm_campaign=github
• Database included, started with -c wal_level=logical -c max_wal_senders=10 -c max_replication_slots=10 so there is nothing to configure: https://railway.com/deploy/electricsql-or-postgres-sync-engine-data?referralCode=Z1xivh&utm_medium=integration&utm_source=template&utm_campaign=github

Four things I had to get right that might be useful to anyone self-hosting Electric on a similar platform, template or not:

1. Shape logs need their own volume. Electric persists them under /var/lib/electric/persistent. Without a volume there, every redeploy makes every client re-sync from scratch — it looks like data loss and it is really just an empty log directory.
2. Listen on IPv6 if the platform's private network is v6-only, otherwise Electric comes up healthy and the app next to it cannot reach it.
3. /v1/health is the right healthcheck target; using the shape endpoint means the platform's probe carries a secret.
4. ELECTRIC_SECRET is worth generating per deploy rather than leaving unset — every shape request needs it, and only /v1/health stays open.

Happy to answer questions about running it this way. And if any of the above is wrong or has a better answer upstream, I would rather be corrected than have people copy it.