Create a persistent volume and attach it to a Railway service via the Public API
domain: docs.railway.com · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
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Documented steps
Get a Railway API token and export it: create one under Account Settings > Tokens (or `railway token`), then `export RAILWAY_TOKEN=<token>`.
Find the target projectId and serviceId: query `project(id){ id serviceId services{ edges{ node{ id name } } } }` or use `railway status` inside a linked project directory.
POST to the public GraphQL endpoint https://backboard.railway.com/graphql/v2 with header `Authorization: Bearer $RAILWAY_TOKEN` and Content-Type application/json (the exact single public API endpoint).
Run the volumeCreate mutation: `mutation volumeCreate($input: VolumeCreateInput!){ volumeCreate(input: $input){ id name } }` with variables {"input":{"projectId":"<project>","serviceId":"<service>","mountPath":"/data"}}.
Capture the returned volume id; the volume is now attached to the service at the given mount path.
Optional input fields: environmentId (create in a specific environment) and region (e.g. us-west1).
Known gotchas
Each service can only have a single volume; creating another for the same service fails.
One service volume per project counts against a plan-based per-project volume cap; replicas cannot be used with volumes.
Mount path must be an absolute container path (e.g. /data or /app/data); a relative path such as ./data will not persist the intended files (see /app prefix rule).
Volumes attach at service start, not build time; data written during build/pre-deploy is not persisted to the volume.
The GraphQL endpoint is the single public API endpoint (backboard.railway.com/graphql/v2); there is no per-volume REST route.
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