r2r supauase railway

Deploy R2R on Railway with Supabase PostgreSQL

This is the recommended approach - Supabase for database, Railway for R2R compute.

Why Supabase + Railway?

✅ Supabase Advantages:

pgvector extension already installed
Free tier: 500MB database, 2GB bandwidth
Built-in dashboard to view data
Automatic backups
Better PostgreSQL performance
Dedicated database (not shared)

✅ Railway Advantages:

Easy R2R deployment
Simple environment variable management
Auto-deploys on Docker image updates

Step-by-Step Setup

Part 1: Set Up Supabase Database (5 min)

1. Create Supabase Workspace

Go to supabase.com
Click “New Workspace”
Fill in:
- Name: r2r-database (or whatever you want)
- Database Password: Generate a strong password (save it!)
- Region: Choose closest to your Railway region
Click “Create new project”
Wait 2-3 minutes for provisioning

2. Get Connection Details

In your Supabase project, go to “Workspace Settings” (gear icon)
Click “Database” in the sidebar
Scroll to “Connection string” section
Select “URI” tab
Copy the connection string - it looks like:

postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@db.abc123xyz.supabase.co:5432/postgres

Replace [YOUR-PASSWORD] with your actual password

3. Verify pgvector is Installed

In Supabase dashboard, click “SQL Editor”
Run this query:

SELECT * FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'vector';

Should return a row showing pgvector is installed
If not, run:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;

4. (Optional) Create Dedicated Database

By default, Supabase uses the postgres database. For cleaner organization:

-- In SQL Editor, run:
CREATE DATABASE r2r;

Then update your connection string:

postgresql://postgres:[PASSWORD]@db.abc123xyz.supabase.co:5432/r2r

Part 2: Deploy R2R on Railway (5 min)

1. Create R2R Service

Go to railway.app
Create New Workspace (or use existing)
Click ”+ New” → “Empty Service”
Name it r2r

2. Configure Docker Image

Click on the r2r service
Go to “Settings”
Under “Source”, select “Docker Image”
Enter: ragtoriches/r2r:latest
Click “Deploy”

3. Set Environment Variables

Click “Variables” tab and add:

# Supabase PostgreSQL Connection
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@db.abc123xyz.supabase.co:5432/postgres

# OR set individual variables:
POSTGRES_HOST=db.abc123xyz.supabase.co
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
POSTGRES_USER=postgres
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your-supabase-password
POSTGRES_DBNAME=postgres

# R2R Configuration
R2R_PROJECT_NAME=supen
R2R_HOST=0.0.0.0
R2R_PORT=7272

# REQUIRED: OpenAI API Key
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-openai-key-here

# Optional: Other LLM providers
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your-anthropic-key

Important: Use either DATABASE_URL or the individual POSTGRES_* variables, not both.

4. Generate Public Domain

Still in R2R service → “Settings”
Scroll to “Networking”
Click “Generate Domain”
Copy the URL: r2r-production.up.railway.app

5. Configure Health Check

Settings → “Health Check”
Set:
- Path: /v3/health
- Timeout: 300 seconds
- Interval: 60 seconds

Part 3: Verify Deployment (2 min)

1. Check R2R Logs

R2R service → “Deployments”
Click latest deployment
Watch logs for:

✅ Good:
Starting R2R server...
Connected to database at db.abc123xyz.supabase.co
Uvicorn running on 0.0.0.0:7272

❌ Bad:
Connection refused
FATAL: password authentication failed
Missing OPENAI_API_KEY

2. Test Health Endpoint

curl https://r2r-production.up.railway.app/v3/health

Should return:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "version": "3.x.x"
}

3. Check Supabase Tables

In Supabase dashboard → “Table Editor”
After R2R starts, you should see new tables:
- documents
- chunks
- collections
- etc.

If you see these, R2R connected successfully! 🎉

Part 4: Connect Supen to R2R (1 min)

In your Supen Railway service:

Add environment variable:

R2R_API_URL=https://r2r-production.up.railway.app
R2R_API_KEY=

For local development:

Update app/.env.local:

R2R_API_URL=https://r2r-production.up.railway.app
R2R_API_KEY=

Test the integration:

# Start Supen locally
pnpm dev

# Test health
curl http://localhost:3333/api/knowledge/health

# Upload a document
curl -X POST http://localhost:3333/api/knowledge/documents \
  -F "[email protected]"

Connection String Formats

Supabase provides multiple formats - all work with R2R:

Format 1: Full URI (Recommended)

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[PASSWORD]@db.abc123xyz.supabase.co:5432/postgres

Format 2: Individual Variables

POSTGRES_HOST=db.abc123xyz.supabase.co
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
POSTGRES_USER=postgres
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your-password
POSTGRES_DBNAME=postgres

Format 3: Connection Pooler (For High Traffic)

Supabase offers connection pooling at a different port:

# Pooler mode (port 6543 instead of 5432)
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[PASSWORD]@db.abc123xyz.supabase.co:6543/postgres?pgbouncer=true

Use pooler mode if you get “too many connections” errors.

Troubleshooting

❌ “Connection refused” or “Connection timeout”

Supabase IP Whitelisting:

Go to Supabase project → Settings → Database
Scroll to “Connection Pooling”
Make sure “Restrict connections to specific IP addresses” is DISABLED
Or add Railway’s IP ranges (not recommended, Railway uses dynamic IPs)

❌ “FATAL: password authentication failed”

Wrong password in connection string:

# Make sure you replaced [YOUR-PASSWORD] with actual password
# Common mistake:
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[YOUR-PASSWORD]@...  # ❌ Wrong

# Should be:
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:SuperSecretPass123@...  # ✅ Correct

❌ “SSL connection required”

Add SSL mode to connection string:

DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[email protected]:5432/postgres?sslmode=require

❌ “Too many connections”

Use Supabase’s connection pooler:

# Change port from 5432 to 6543
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:[email protected]:6543/postgres?pgbouncer=true

❌ R2R starts but can’t create tables

Check database permissions:

-- In Supabase SQL Editor:
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE postgres TO postgres;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON SCHEMA public TO postgres;

Cost Comparison

Supabase + Railway vs Railway PostgreSQL:

Feature	Supabase Free	Railway PG	Supabase Pro
Database Size	500MB	Shared	8GB
Bandwidth	2GB/month	Shared	50GB/month
Backups	✅ Daily	❌ Manual	✅ PITR
pgvector	✅ Pre-installed	Manual install	✅ Pre-installed
Cost	FREE	~$5/month	$25/month

Recommended Setup:

Development: Supabase Free + Railway Free ($5 credit)
Production: Supabase Pro + Railway Hobby ($30-35/month total)

Supabase Tips

View Your R2R Data

Supabase dashboard → “Table Editor”
Browse tables:
- documents - See uploaded files
- chunks - See text chunks
- collections - See knowledge bases

Monitor Database Usage

Settings → “Database”
Check:
- Size: How much space used
- Connections: Active connections
- Activity: Query performance

Create Database Backups

Free tier: Automatic daily backups (7-day retention)

Pro tier: Point-in-time recovery

Manual backup:

pg_dump "postgresql://postgres:[email protected]:5432/postgres" > backup.sql

Security Best Practices

1. Use Strong Database Password

# In Supabase project settings → Database
# Click "Reset database password"
# Use a password manager to generate 32+ character password

2. Enable RLS (Row Level Security) - Optional

For extra security, enable RLS on R2R tables:

-- In Supabase SQL Editor
ALTER TABLE documents ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;
ALTER TABLE chunks ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;

-- Create policies (example)
CREATE POLICY "Allow R2R access" ON documents
  FOR ALL
  USING (true);  -- R2R handles auth at app level

3. Use Environment Variables

Never hardcode passwords:

# ❌ Bad
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres:mypassword@...

# ✅ Good - Store in Railway Variables
DATABASE_URL=${{SUPABASE_DATABASE_URL}}

Next Steps

Once R2R is running with Supabase:

✅ Upload test documents via Supen
✅ Check Supabase Table Editor to see data
✅ Query knowledge base via API
✅ Monitor database usage in Supabase dashboard

Summary

Advantages of Supabase + Railway:

✅ Free tier available (Supabase free + Railway $5 credit) ✅ pgvector pre-installed (no manual setup) ✅ Better database management (Supabase UI is excellent) ✅ Automatic backups (Railway doesn’t include this) ✅ Separate concerns (Database vs Compute) ✅ Easy to scale (Upgrade Supabase to Pro, Railway to Hobby)

Perfect for:

Development and testing (Free!)
Small-to-medium production apps
When you want database visibility
When you might use Supabase for other features later

Ready to set it up? Follow the steps above and you’ll have R2R running in ~10 minutes!