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Railpack

The Railpack backend builds container images using Railway Railpacks with BuildKit — no Dockerfile needed. Railpack auto-detects your application type and generates an optimized build plan.

See Building Images for the backend comparison and general options (build args, platform, cache).

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Install the railpack CLI:

Terminal window
mise use -g ubi:railwayapp/railpack

Basic Usage

Section titled “Basic Usage”
Terminal window
rise build myapp:latest --backend railpack
rise deploy --backend railpack:buildctl

Railpack is the default backend when no Dockerfile or Containerfile is present.

Backend Variants

Section titled “Backend Variants”
  • railpack / railpack:buildx — uses railpack prepare then docker buildx build
  • railpack:buildctl — uses railpack prepare then buildctl build (no Docker daemon needed)

How It Works

Section titled “How It Works”

Railpack builds are two steps:

  1. Prepare: railpack prepare generates a build plan (JSON) from your application code. Environment variables and secrets are declared at this stage.
  2. Build: The plan is built using either docker buildx build (with the railpack-frontend BuildKit frontend) or buildctl build. Environment variables are passed as BuildKit secrets, not build args.