Railway•15mo ago

Easy (?) shared variables question

The environment contains the excellent Payload CMS template, attendant Mongo DB, and a Next.js front end. This works well when the env are set manually for each service, however the shared variables don't. What am I missing? This works when set on each service, eg. not shared

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://cowcatcher.up.railway.app/
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://caboose.up.railway.app/

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://cowcatcher.up.railway.app/
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://caboose.up.railway.app/

The shared variables do not work

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://${{cowcatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://${{caboose.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://${{cowcatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=https://${{caboose.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}

When shared on both front and back end services, the variables look like this

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=${{shared.NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}}
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=${{shared.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}}

NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=${{shared.NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}}
PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL=${{shared.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}}

Project ID 520ae57c-db3e-4e21-ace6-db67bca65e2a

50 Replies

Percy•15mo ago

Project ID: 520ae57c-db3e-4e21-ace6-db67bca65e2a

Brody•15mo ago

are those the correct service names? cowcatcher and caboose?

nballOP•15mo ago

Yes 😂 https://cowcatcher.up.railway.app/ Caboose is stuck on loading screen right now. Might be cors.

Brody•15mo ago

can I see a screenshot of the project?

nballOP•15mo ago

Yes, just a moment To build on this issue, fetching with process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL/api/posts is working locally as expected, but in production does not work. The static path https://caboose.up.railway.app/api/posts works in both. This may be an issue with Next.js not reading the service env for some reason? What's odd is that the env prints in TSX… Screenshot of what precisely? Just the UI?

Brody•15mo ago

the whole project

nballOP•15mo ago

Brody•15mo ago

and both those are built with nixpacks?

nballOP•15mo ago

Yessir [us-west1] ============== Using Nixpacks ============== https://cowcatcher.up.railway.app/blog

Brody•15mo ago

and this might be a silly question but how have you been able to confirm the variables aren't rendering, besides any issues from the next apps

nballOP•15mo ago

        <p>
          process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL is working:{' '}
          {process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}
        </p>

        <p>
          process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL is working:{' '}
          {process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}
        </p>

They render within the return for export default async function Blog() etc

Brody•15mo ago

what does that show?

nballOP•15mo ago

It's not a trailing slash is it… hmmmmmmm

Brody•15mo ago

okay that looks good, now is that when you are using reference variables?

nballOP•15mo ago

https://caboose.up.railway.app/ hmmmmmm

Brody•15mo ago

slow down here, it works

nballOP•15mo ago

Brody•15mo ago

are you currently using reference variables?

nballOP•15mo ago

  const res = await fetch(
    `${process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}/api/posts?where[_status][equals]=published&depth=1&sort=-displayDate`,
    { next: { revalidate: 3600 } } // revalidate at most every hour
  )

  const res = await fetch(
    `${process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}/api/posts?where[_status][equals]=published&depth=1&sort=-displayDate`,
    { next: { revalidate: 3600 } } // revalidate at most every hour
  )

I am using variables set within each service, not shared. Not sure about reference.

Brody•15mo ago

static variables reference variables shared variables

Brody•15mo ago

what type are you currently using

nballOP•15mo ago

First ones, static Should env paths like these include the trailing slash? That may be the culprit.

Brody•15mo ago

you want to use the reference variables, that way if you ever change a service name the variable update with the name change and yes you typically would not include a trailing slash in these types of variables

nballOP•15mo ago

Ok, to clairfy, ${{cowcatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}} will somehow automagically update the subdomain if the service name changes? If so, I love Railway more every day.

Brody•15mo ago

yeah say you change the service name from "cowcatcher" to "horsecatcher" your ${{cowcatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}} will automatically update to ${{horsecatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}} and then if you then went and changed the public domain of the newly renamed service, all you'd need to do is redeploy the service that uses that variable and it will get rendered with the new domain

nballOP•15mo ago

Killer. I like that. The shared will not render a trailing slash either? Presumably not.

Brody•15mo ago

if you put a trailing slash in the variable, there will be a trailing slash in the rendered variable

nballOP•15mo ago

The shared variable in environment settings looks like this https://${{cowcatcher.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}} Once shared to a service, looks like this ${{shared.NEXT_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL}}

Brody•15mo ago

so I don't really see how shared variables come into play here? just use reference variables

nballOP•15mo ago

Oof, I am getting terms mixed up. Don't use shared in this case, regardless. The idea is, in the near future, to clone this environment entirely, if possible.

Brody•15mo ago

also if you for example want to set a variable DOMAIN equal to the services own domain, you don't need to specify the service name since it's in the same namespace

nballOP•15mo ago

Ahhhh, smart. Even better. Required for cors anyway. Thank you!

Brody•15mo ago

so just use reference variables, that would clone across environments nicely

nballOP•15mo ago

Thank you so much. "Caboose" is built on your template, thanks for that too!

Brody•15mo ago

and everything worked fine with that template?

nballOP•15mo ago

Oh yes, even with all the extra stuff I have added. Works like a charm. Note, process.env.PAYLOAD_PUBLIC_SERVER_URL is indeed printing a trailing slash. This seems wrong somehow.

nballOP•15mo ago

Outputs

nballOP•15mo ago

Brody•15mo ago

but does the variable you set have a trailing slash?

nballOP•15mo ago

Yes, it did! Ok, sorry to be such a newb on this.

Brody•15mo ago

yep railway isn't going to touch anything outside of the ${{}} so if there's a slash, it will be there after rendering

nballOP•15mo ago

At some point, I'd like to learn how to craft whole environments as templates. Creating the linkages between the services and the volumes, for example. I haven't seen much detail in the documentation on that aspect. Does nixpacks do that as well?

Brody•15mo ago

I'll send you an example project over that uses reference variables heavily across multiple services

Brody•15mo ago

guess railway doesnt want me to show you

nballOP•15mo ago

Lol Is this documented officially somewhere?

Brody•15mo ago

of course, and I should have linked the docs, but I just wanted to show you a real world example of reference variables, here's the docs though https://docs.railway.app/develop/variables#reference-variables i got railway to fix the issue so here is my public example project https://railway.app/project/22902de5-b872-45ae-ba98-743585f6812a have a look at all the service variables and how they reference each other! this is also available as a template if youd like to look at that too https://railway.app/template/CUZ7Dz

nballOP•15mo ago

Darned if it won't show the variables. I can view the project but not the envs.

Brody•15mo ago

oh yeah, well you can see the variables in the template! click to expand all variables

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Easy (?) shared variables question