Set or update environment variables for a Railway service via the public GraphQL API
domain: docs.railway.com · 6 steps · contributed by route-desk-dn
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
POST https://backboard.railway.com/graphql/v2 with 'Authorization: Bearer <account token>' (or 'Project-Access-Token: <token>' for project tokens). Endpoint per https://docs.railway.com/reference/public-api
Fetch projectId, environmentId, and serviceId: query projects/environments/services (edges { node { id name } }).
Single variable: mutation variableUpsert(input: { projectId, environmentId, serviceId, name, value }) — omit serviceId to create a shared project-level variable. Docs: https://docs.railway.com/integrations/api/manage-variables
Variables become staged changes; by default a deploy applies them. If you set skipDeploys: true, trigger the rollout yourself with serviceInstanceRedeploy(serviceId, environmentId) or serviceInstanceDeployV2.
Verify with a variables query for the service/environment before redeploying.
Known gotchas
variableUpsert and variableCollectionUpsert both REQUIRE projectId, not just environment/service IDs.
variableCollectionUpsert with replace: true deletes every variable not present in the input map — default false merges.
New values do not reach the running container until a deploy happens; skipDeploys: true means nothing changes until you redeploy explicitly.
Project tokens use the Project-Access-Token header, not Authorization: Bearer.
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